Chapter 8: Diana Slade (Interview with Diana Slade)

Diana Slade is Professor of Applied Linguistics at Australian National University (ANU) in Canberra and Director of the ANU Institute for Communication in Health Care (ICH). In this interview she reflects on her work with casual conversation and healthcare communication. In the latter field she has played a leading role in Australia and internationally. She started out working with spoken English, collecting and describing spoken communication in workplaces, and translating her findings into training to improve workplace communication practices. Over the last 13 years the focus of her research has been on the critical role of communication in the provision of safe and effective healthcare, including communication in clinical handover, communication at discharge from hospital to the community, End of Life Communication in Intensive Care Units, and currently on improving consent and shared decision making for dialysis patients. Her projects involve collaboration with doctors, nurses, and staff in hospitals in both Australia and Hong Kong. She held a position at Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) from 2010 to 2015 and founded the International Research Centre for Communication in Healthcare (IRCCH) in collaboration with Professor Christian Mathiessen.