Three months in Denmark to deepen innovative communication in palliative care

How to innovate in the communication of palliative care? Can teaching be a good tool to achieve it? How to add new ambassadors to spread its message? Ana Paula Salas, predoctoral researcher at the ATLANTES Global Observatory of Palliative Care at Institute for Culture and Society (ICS) of the University of Navarra, has been analyzing these and other questions for three years in her doctoral thesis : Innovation in palliative care communication through experience professor.

On April 1, she packed her bags and landed in Aarhus, a Danish city located a little more than three hours from Copenhagen, to gain new perspectives and deepen her study from a communication point of view. There she was welcomed by researcher Matilde Nisbeth Brøgger, director of the Center for Health Communication (CHEC) at the University of Aarhus. University of Aarhus. In this academic center she made a research stay, as it has a department health communication specialized in programs of study qualitative. "Matilda put me on contact with many professionals so that I had the opportunity to share my work in new spaces. I met with a group of research focused on strategic communication and with researchers specialized in palliative care," she explains.

The various forums helped her to reflect on the importance of providing basic information on palliative care, adapted to each audience and context. In addition, during the stay, she had the opportunity to advance in the analysis of interviews and questionnaires, pieces core topic for her research.

Salas emphasizes how enriching it has been result to learn how academic life works at another university and to be able to incorporate the most positive aspects into her work routines. For example, through an online writing club she met at the university, she started using the Pomodoro method, a management time technique that consists of putting the focus on doing a task for 25 minutes and resting for the next five. "I liked discovering how productive I can be. And it's also a way to keep company with other people," she notes.

He also enjoyed the diversity of courses offered each month by the University of Aarhus. Among them, he attended a course on sustainableEducation , in which people who had already received it shared their experience, and another on research linguistics: "The foundation they offer to doctoral students in communication is very much intertwined with linguistics, so it was very interesting. There were a lot of opportunities." "The balance of the stay is great. I loved it. And the city and the country are wonderful," she emphasizes.