Programme & Book of Abstracts

Here is the Comet 2024 final programme. You can also download the programme and the Book of Abstracts in pdf format using the links below.

Please note that the conference venues are the following:

  • S. Faustino: via San Faustino 74/B
  • S. Chiara: Contrada S. Chiara n. 50
COMET-2024-DEFINITIVE-PROGRAMME-20.06-update
FINAL BoA COMET 2024

Day 1 – Wednesday JUNE 26th, 2024

08:15 – 09:00 REGISTRATION
S. Faustino cloister
09:00 – 09:30 OPENING CEREMONY & WELCOME REMARKS
Aula Magna S. Faustino
09:30 – 10:30 SPECIAL FEATURED LECTURE
Aula Magna S. Faustino
Prof. Francesco Castelli, Rector of the University of Brescia, Italy
“Health literacy and communication with migrants’ populations: The case of Covid-19” (Chair: Annalisa Zanola)
10:30 – 11:00 TEA/COFFEE – S. Faustino cloister
ROOM B4 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B3 (S. CHIARA) ROOM A1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM C1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B2 (S. CHIARA) AULA MAGNA (S. FAUSTINO) SALA BIBLIOTECA (S. FAUSTINO)
ORAL SESSION 1
Chair: Stefan Timmermans		 ORAL SESSION 2
Chair: Laura Pinnavaia		 ORAL SESSION 3
Chair: Anna Middleton		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 1
Chair: Barbara Buffoli		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 2
Chair: Roxanne Barbara Doerr		 PANEL 1 – SESSION 1

Ethics of care and communication (Coordinator: Srikant Sarangi)		 PANEL 2 – SESSION 1

Healthcare communication discourses and the applied linguist (Coordinators: Stefania Maci & Roxanne Holly Padley)
11:00 – 11:30

Engle Angela Chan

Simulation-based education in palliative care communication training within a socio-material approach

Joanna Pawelczyk & Elena Faccio

Identifying therapeutic change in and across sessions: Conversation analysis of the therapist’s interactional management of gendered assumptions and categories

John Casey Gooch

Medical science, health policy, and oral argument: A qualitative content analysis of the PACE debate on COVID-19 vaccines

Ana Reyes Herrero

“I don’t understand, doctor”: Analysing the biomedical discourse of assisted reproduction to improve patients’ health literacy

Silvia Gonella & Paola Di Giulio

Preliminary evaluation of an interdisciplinary, experiential-based communication skills training program for nursing home staff

Introduction by panel coordinator: Srikant Sarangi

Lauris C. Kaldjian
Concepts of health and virtues in caring

Rukhsana Ahmed
Immigrant patients’ experiences of sources of conflict with healthcare providers: Some ethical considerations

Introduction by panel coordinators: Stefania Maci & Roxanne Holly Padley

Paola Catenaccio
Categorizing experience in narratives of anorexia recovery: the role of linguistics in narrative inquiry

Girolamo Tessuto
Discoursal construction of gender identity in medicine and biology research blogs

Begoña Bellés-FortuñoDiagnosing vs. communicating: Women’s healthcare
11:35 – 12:05

Sara Patuzzo & Lidia del Piccolo

Communicating suffering: Ethical and psychological challenges of palliative care in the context of medically assisted suicide

Tanya Fischer

Improving Care for Those with Cancer: NCCN Guidelines for Patients®

Giulia Adriana Pennisi

Health literacy and the EU Guide on ‘contributing to trust building and equitable access to healthcare’

Sinem Bilican

Tackling methodological barriers: A journey of creating an accessible healthcare survey for a diverse population

Ethan Stonerook

The Good Surgeon: Design, implementation, and evaluation of a communal, mentored program to promote flourishing and character development in surgical trainees
12:10 – 12:40

Yumin Lin

Cultural influences on palliative care decision-making among family caregivers in Singapore

Mohamed Irfan

Inclusive research practices: Multilingual perspectives on informed consent

Houda Al Kalaf

Communicative intervention to improve communication between refugee and migrant patients and health workers in mental health
12:45 – 13:45 LUNCH – S. Faustino cloister
ROOM B4 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B3 (S. CHIARA) ROOM A1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM C1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B2 (S. CHIARA) AULA MAGNA (S. FAUSTINO) SALA BIBLIOTECA (S. FAUSTINO)
ORAL SESSION 4
Chair: Alessandra Vicentini		 ORAL SESSION 5
Chair: Umberto Gelatti		 ORAL SESSION 6
Chair: Elisabetta Ceretti		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 3
Chair: Giulia Adriana Pennisi		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 4
Chair: Joanna Pawelczyk		 PANEL 1 – SESSION 2

Ethics of care and communication (Coordinator: Srikant Sarangi)		 PANEL 2 – SESSION 2

Healthcare communication discourses and the applied linguist (Coordinators: Stefania Maci & Roxanne Holly Padley)
13:45 – 14:15

Ahmad Izadi

Medical consultation visits in Iran: How culture is mirrored in talk-in-interaction

Staci Defibaugh

Tuning in: Approaches and expressions of empathy in physician assistant neurology visits

Elzbieta Paszynska

Preventive dentistry – existing oral health habits among Polish adults

Nicola Pelizzari

Lay-friendliness in British and Italian patient information leaflets – A corpus-driven comparative study

Eloise Parr

Pregnancy is a journey: a metaphor analysis of pregnancy lived experience

Alison Pilnick
“I’m going home to my dad”: Intersubjectivity and reality disjunctures in the care of people living with dementia

Angus Clarke, Matilda Bradford, Beck Diamond, Lisa Ballard & Shane Doherty
Caring for the patient through communicative practices in genetic counselling for neurodegenerative disorders

Álvaro Mendes, Maria Barbosa, Sofia Dias, Filipa Júlio, Jorge Sequeiros, Célia Sales, Liliana Sousa & Milena Paneque
Genetic counselling, care and the communication of risk information within the family

Stefania d’Avanzo
Informative and promotional features of healthcare communication through the lens of discourse analysis: the digitalized services on NHS (National Health Service) website

Begoña Bellés-Fortuño & Lucia Bellés-Calvera
Assisting individuals with hearing Impairment: Exploring PHONICSOFT, speech recognition software in the healthcare system

Roxanne Holly Padley
An appraisal of corpus linguistic research feedback provided to healthcare professionals

Questions, discussion and reflections
14:20 – 14:50 Bianca Beltrame
Investigating the impact of social media usage and exposure on BBD and perceived self-image: A mixed-method analysis of a sample of young adults living in Italy		 Blair Ying Jin
The affective reading of “hao-bu-hao?” in diagnosis delivery		 Zoe Ong
Doctor-patient communication in telemedicine consultations: Insights from an interview study with patients in Singapore		 Miguel Ángel Campos-Pardillos
Clarity in informed consents: A pilot bilingual study on readability, euphemisms and patient information in the legal-medical interface		 Isabel Balteiro
Linguistic strategies in first-person oral narratives of women affected by osteoporosis
14:55 – 15:25 Robyn Woodward-Kron
Transforming intercultural communication through translanguaging: Interdisciplinary and critical approaches for medical education		 Michelle Nenkai Nthumba, Basweti Ombati, Monica Mweseli & Joseph Muleka
Empowering communities through education and health communication: A catalyst for reducing maternal and unborn child mortality resulting from unintended pregnancies in Kenya
15:25 – 15:40 SHORT BREAK – S. Chiara 1st floor & S. Faustino cloister
ROOM B4 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B3 (S. CHIARA) ROOM A1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM C1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B2 (S. CHIARA) AULA MAGNA (S. FAUSTINO) SALA BIBLIOTECA (S. FAUSTINO)
ORAL SESSION 7
Chair: Kristin Bührig		 ORAL SESSION 8
Chair: John C. Gooch		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 5
Chair: Loredana Covolo		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 6
Chair: Stephanie Fox		 PANEL 1 – SESSION 3
Ethics of care and communication (Coordinator: Srikant Sarangi)
15:40 – 16:10 Jette Holt
How to do things with numbers – how do infection prevention and control teams resemiotize surveillance data		 Mbulungeni Madiba
Metaphors in Venda traditional medicines and their implications for western health communication and treatment in South Africa during COVID-19		 Kathrine Krüger Østbøll
Psychometric properties and cultural and linguistic appropriateness of a health literacy scale in people with Somali background living in Norway		 Katharine Weetman & Katherine Heathcock
An evaluation of the referred students’ coaching programme through student surveys

Giuditta Caliendo & Lola Marinato
Metaphors in the discourse of perinatal death to improve bereavement care: Ethical and communicative aspects

Srikant Sarangi
Caring role-responsibilities in clinical practice and beyond

Questions, discussion and reflections
16:15 – 16:45 Marco Annoni
When words make us sick: the ethics of harnessing nocebo effects in clinical practice		 Rosita Maglie & Francesca Filograsso
A metaphor for changing the mental wellbeing of adolescents with cancer and the provision of health services		 Susy Macqueen
Health literacy in context: Interrogating the construct of health literacy through instruments, interactions and insights		 Anna Smålander
How do you write clinical notes? – a focus group study on clinical note writing with health-care professionals and university students
16:50 – 17:20 Anais Carnet
The CORPPS project: From theory to reality and back
17:20 – 17:40 SHORT BREAK (S. Chiara 1st floor & S. Faustino cloister) & TRANSITION TO S. FAUSTINO
17:40 – 18:40 PLENARY LECTURE
Aula Magna S. Faustino
Prof. Anna Middleton, University of Cambridge, UK “Human embryo editing: Citizens jury for deliberation of ethics and policy formation” (Chair: Srikant Sarangi)
18:40 – 20:00 COMET 2024 WELCOME RECEPTION – S. Faustino cloister

Day 2 – Thursday JUNE 27th, 2024

08:30 – 09:00 WELCOME REMARKS(Aula Magna S. Faustino)
& SINGLE DAY REGISTRATION (S. Faustino & S. Chiara cloisters)
ROOM B4 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B3 (S. CHIARA) ROOM A1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM C1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B2 (S. CHIARA) AULA MAGNA (S. FAUSTINO) SALA BIBLIOTECA (S. FAUSTINO)
ORAL SESSION 9
Chair: Diana Slade		 ORAL SESSION 10
Chair: Rosita Maglie		 ORAL SESSION 11
Chair: Robyn Woodward-Kron		 WORK IN PROGRESS SESSION 7
Chair: Ute Knoch		 WORK-IN-PROGRESS SESSION 8
Chair: Giuditta Caliendo		 PANEL 3
Communicating reproductive futures: Ethical evaluations, terminology choices and speculations (Coordinator: Alexandra Krendel)		 PANEL 4 – SESSION 1
Health and well-being as seen through food and nutrition discourse(s): Past and present perspectives (Coordinator: Alessandra Vicentini)
9:00 – 9:30 Chiara Barattieri di San Pietro
Computational insights into a spoken schizophrenia corpus		 Sole Alba Zollo
“Doctors need to see people as human”: Women’s experiences of obstetric violence in online narratives		 Zuzanna Jechna & Agnieszka Kiełkiewicz-Janowiak
“Even the toughest cookies have mental problems”: Discursive resources applied in Polish healthcare platforms to help people cope with mental illness stigma		 Emma Giraudier
What does ‘conscious’ mean? A terminological and interactional analysis of lay callers’ assessments in French emergency calls for severe trauma		 Karen Nissen Schade Shriver
Interactional strategies in in-patient interviews: How psychiatric doctors communicate with patients with psychotic symptoms

Introduction by panel coordinator: Alexandra Krendel

Alexandra Krendel, Stephen Wilkinson & Nicola Williams
The ethics of ectogenesis: corpus linguistic insights from YouTube comments

Nicola Williams & Laura O’Donovan
Terminology, communication, and new reproductive technologies: Reflections on ectogenesis discourse

Andrew Darby, Sara Fovargue & Georgia Walton
(Re)producing futures with other disciplines

Questions, discussion and reflections

Introduction by panel coordinator: Alessandra Vicentini

Barbara Berti
Nutritional discourse and societal attitudes across time: A corpus-based diachronic analysis of the evolution of the collocation “Healthy Food”

Elisabetta Lonati
Diet, nutrition, regimen: Food and healthcare in 18th-century British midwifery

Simone Curzio Bacchini
Health in your trolley: The rhetorical construction of the ‘Good Supermarket’ and self-positioning as an active partner in keeping the nation healthy in the UK
9:35 – 10:05

Anna Maria Della Vedova & Stephen Mattey


The promotion of perinatal psychological health: screening expectant and new parents for possible distress, an exploratory study to compare two screening instruments

Vanesa Rodríguez Tembrás
Two languages, one goal: Code-switching in bilingual medical consultations

 Gilberto Giannacchi
Exploring depression in American government medical texts: a corpus-assisted discourse analytical study		 Laura Ferrarotti
The Personal Stories Section on Pharmaceutical Company Websites: The Role of Patients’ Narratives on Novartis’ and Johnson & Johnson’s websites		 Monica Consolandi, Simone Magnolini & Mauro Dragoni
Risk and communication: which tools to detect misunderstandings?
10:10 – 10:40

Giulia Lamiani
Examining sub-categories of moral distress among Italian healthcare professionals: Reflections and implications for research

Kristin Bührig
“Agency” in multilingual health communication: The case of long-Covid
10:45 – 11:15 TEA/COFFEE – S. Faustino cloister
11:15 – 12:45 ANNOUNCEMENT OF COMET 2025 + ANNOUNCEMENT OF COMET 2023 RESEARCHER AWARD
PLENARY LECTURE
Aula Magna S. Faustino
Prof. Silvio Brusaferro, University of Udine, Italy
“Institutional communication in public health crises: Lessons learned during the Sars-Cov-2 pandemic”
(Chair: Umberto Gelatti)
12:45 – 13:45 LUNCH – S. Faustino cloister
ROOM B4 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B3 (S. CHIARA) ROOM A1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM C1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B2 (S. CHIARA) AULA MAGNA (S. FAUSTINO) SALA BIBLIOTECA (S. FAUSTINO)
ORAL SESSION 12
Chair: Roxanne Barbara Doerr		 ORAL SESSION 13
Chair: Angus Clarke		 ORAL SESSION 14
Chair: Lauris C. Kaldjian		 PANEL 5

Pushing the boundaries of life: Synchronic and diachronic observations on pre- and post-mortem body preservation (Coordinator: Kim Grego)		 PANEL 4 – SESSION 2

Health and well-being as seen through food and nutrition discourse(s): Past and present perspectives (Coordinator: Alessandra Vicentini)
13:50 – 14:20 Federica Ranzani
“Doing being a good parent” in the pediatric clinic: Parents’ knowledge displays in advice requests on baby’s everyday care		 Liza Goncharov, Diana Slade & Diba Almasi
Communication in end-of-life care in a geriatric ward		 Alessia Bevilacqua
An ethical reflection on student engagement: which tools? Validation of an assessment questionnaire for Team-Based Learning

Introduction by panel coordinator: Kim Grego

Laura Tommaso & Simone Curzio Bacchini
The discursive construction of longevity by biotech companies: A corpus-based study

Francesca Cappellini
Ethical immortality: Corpus-based analysis of questions on radical life extension practices

Anna Anselmo
Conceptualising embalming: Terms surrounding the embalming of Mrs. Van Butchell

Questions, discussion and reflections

Alessandra Agnese Grossi
A socio-ecological approach to explore the conceptualization of and the barriers to “Healthy Nutrition” and “Well-being” among different ethnic groups in Northern Italy: Preliminary findings of a qualitative study

Laura Pinnavaia
Obfuscating ill-being and creating ‘Well-being’: The communication strategies of the world’s top ten food and beverage companies

Sara Corrizzato & Valeria Franceschi
Explaining nutrition to the wider public: An analysis of spoken science popularization texts

Alessandra Vicentini
“Eat the Rainbow to Age Well”: Exploring seniors’ well-being through discourses on healthy eating and nutrition across genres and text types

Questions, discussion and reflections
14:25 – 14:55 Heidi Gilstadt
Narrative health literacy – communicative manifestations of patients’ literacy in clinical encounters		 Ute Knoch
Modelling communication challenges of aged care workers from multilingual and multicultural backgrounds		 Sarah Bigi
Healthcare communication teaching in Italy: State of the art and future perspectives
15:00 – 15:30 Fiona Chew
Examining e-health literacy among senior adults: An exploratory study		 Susi Woolf
Educating future health professionals: Modelling what we teach
15:30 – 16:00 TEA/COFFEE – S. Chiara 1st floor & S. Faustino cloister
16:00 – 17:15 PLENARY POSTER SESSION
Sala Biblioteca S. Faustino
(Chair: Srikant Sarangi)
(Each poster presenter will orally present their work in 2-3 minutes)
17:15 – 18:45 POSTER PRESENTATIONS
S. Faustino cloister
19:30 onwards BUFFET-STYLE CONFERENCE DINNER at “La Sosta” Restaurant (Via S. Martino della Battaglia, 20)

Day 3 – Friday JUNE 28th, 2024

08:30 – 09:00 WELCOME REMARKS(Aula Magna S. Faustino)
& SINGLE DAY REGISTRATION (S. Faustino & S. Chiara cloisters)
9:00 – 10:00 PLENARY LECTURE
Aula Magna S. Faustino
Prof. Stefan Timmermans, University of California, Los Angeles, USA
“Contextualizing the patient-doctor encounter” (Chair: Srikant Sarangi)
10:15 – 10:45 TEA/COFFEE – S. Faustino cloister
ROOM B4 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B3 (S. CHIARA) ROOM A1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM C1 (S. CHIARA) ROOM B2 (S. CHIARA) AULA MAGNA (S. FAUSTINO) SALA BIBLIOTECA (S. FAUSTINO)
ORAL SESSION 15
Chair: Annalisa Zanola		 ORAL SESSION 16
Chair: Kim Grego		 ORAL SESSION 17
Chair: Rukhsana Ahmed		 PANEL 6

Strengthening scientific literacy through institutional health communication (Coordinator: Sara Rubinelli)		 PANEL 7

Navigating interactional challenges in interprofessional communication (Coordinator: Stephanie Fox)
10:45 – 11:15 Weiwei Lu
Toward mutual engagement: A narrative-based model of shared decision making		 Yvan Leanza
An original video vignettes study to validate the typology of healthcare interpreter positionings among healthcare practitioners		 Johanna Falby Lindell
Epistemic humility in complex migrant patient-provider interactions

Introduction by panel coordinator: Sara Rubinelli

Nicola Diviani & Sara Rubinelli
Unveiling scientific literacy: A conceptual journey

Maddalena Fiordelli
Crafting scientific literacy in high school curricula: A participatory approach

Claudia Zanini & Sara Rubinelli
Strategic communication by health institutions: Learning from influencers and media partnerships

Questions, discussion and reflections

Introduction by Panel coordinator: Stephanie Fox

Stephanie Fox & Kirstie McAllum
Communication avoidance when trust disappears in times of crisis

Léna Meyer
Clashing frames of care when plans go awry: Midwives and hospital obstetrics teams

Letizia Caronia, Federica Ranazani, Vittoria Colla, & Silvia Demozzi
Discursive interprofessionality in the pediatric clinic: Stance-taking toward absent professionals’ reported voice as a locally changing positioning

Kelly Lackie
Psychologically safe communication in interprofessional education

Questions, discussion and reflections
11:20 – 11:50 Geoffrey Maina
Using inclusive narratives to address the unintended influence of prevalence rates on ethics and funding decisions		 Mary Catherine Beach
How is the patient’s voice recorded in their medical record by physicians?		 Clare Delany
Unpacking methods of communication in clinical ethics consultations: Seven steps of the critical dialogue model
11:55 – 12:30
12:30 – 13:30 LUNCH – S. Faustino cloister
13:30 – 14:30 COMET OPEN FORUM & CLOSING SESSION
Aula Magna S. Faustino
(Chair: Srikant Sarangi)
14:30 onwards SOCIAL EVENT / RESEARCH NETWORKING
Aula Magna S. Faustino