Collaborating with clinicians

Communication in healthcare has been studied by linguists and other social scientists for over half a century. Increasingly this work is centred around naturally-occurring data, allowing for repeated observation and analysis by teams of researchers. This has afforded research teams the opportunity to collaborate with clinicians as researchers. As social sciences move to ensure representation in research projects, this collaboration gives clinicians a voice in the analytic process, leading to a more robust analysis and increased applicability to practice. Involving clinicians in research requires additional planning to allow for restricted availabilities and, in some cases, to allow for upskilling in the research methodology. In this panel, we present our experiences in building bridges with clinical colleagues, including lessons from these, to encourage others to do the same