DrGed Murtagh

Ged is a social scientist (sociology) conducting research at the touch points of medical sociology, conversation analysis and clinical communication. His research utilises qualitative methods to analyse data collected in clinical settings. The focus of his work is to understand how interaction in clinical settings is shaped through systematic patterns of talk. Ged's primary interest is in the application of Conversation Analysis (CA) to clinical encounters. CA is a specialist sociological technique used to analyse audio or video to achieve a fine level of granularity in the analysis of social interaction.

Ged's research has involved  a range of specialties (most recently surgery, oncology and physiotherapy) examining how these professional groups communicate with patients and their professional colleagues. One of the focal points of this work is to identify patterns of communication behaviour which may be consequential for the delivery of care or the organisation of professional work. One outcome of this work is to show how certain actions/questions from a clinician can encournage patient question asking and therefore potentially improve patient involvement and shared decision making.

Impact and Application:

In collaboration with Professor Anne Thomas and her team at Leicester, Ged was involved in the design and development of a novel consultation aid which can be used by both the patient and doctor together to facilitate information exchange within an oncology consultation. This work was funded through a grant from NIHR Research for Patient Benefit Programme.

More recently, the findings from one of Ged's PhD students (jointly supervised with Professor Alison McGregor) work, which used conversation analysis, have been strongly endorsed by Professor Peter O Sullivan, an internationally recognised leading clinician in the field of complex pain management, within the RESTORE clinical trial - https://www.restorebackpain.com/clinican-journey