Professor Jeff Bezemer (IOE) Professor Jonathan Smith (Birkbeck) & Dr Tim Bonnici
This is a unique opportunity to pursue a doctoral study on the communication between families of critically ill patients and staff in the Intensive Care Unit. You will be studying under the supervision of Jeff Bezemer (professor of communication), Jonathan Smith (professor of psychology) and Tim Bonnici (consultant intensive care physician). Adopting a longitudinal ethnographic and experiential approach, you will (1) observe family-staff encounters over a period of time, exploring, e.g., how conversations are handled, how identities are constructed, how decisions are made; and (2) examine how families and staff experience their evolving relationship, exploring how particular individuals are making sense of the communications and relationships they are having. You will support ICU communities in their local efforts to understand and improve family-staff communication by producing rich, thick descriptions of telling cases that render visible the complexities of communication and developing a language of description around recurring themes in the conversations and accounts of family and staff, facilitating metacommunication (e.g. factors that are perceived to inhibit or promote effective communication).
Applications are invited from candidates with:
1. A relevant postgraduate degree in the social sciences (e.g. sociolinguistics, psychology, sociology).
2. Experience in and passion for conducting qualitative research.
3. Very good communication and interpersonal skills.
4. Ability to conduct fieldwork around sensitive topics in a high-stakes environment and manage stories of stress, grief, anxiety, and depression.
5. Preparedness to work during out-of-office hours.
Desirables include:
6. Research experience in the areas of clinical communication and/or lived experience of health and illness.
7. Demonstrable affinity with clinical care and familiarity with intensive care and/or hospital settings.
8. Experience of applying for research ethics approval from the UK Health Research Authority.
Applicants should present evidence against these criteria in their cover letter, using the criteria as subheadings.
More details about the project are available on demand.
Closing date for applications is: 28 February 2024 (23.59pm)
Further details about the project may be obtained from:
Principal Supervisor: J.bezemer@ucl.ac.uk
Co-Supervisors: ja.smith@bbk.ac.uk, t.bonnici@nhs.net
Further information about PhDs at UCL is available from:
https://www.ucl.ac.uk/ioe/departments-and-centres/centres/centre-doctoral-education
The Bloomsbury Colleges 