Ahus microanalysis workshop

– Jennifer Gerwing

In 2020, I was working at Akershus University Hospital and guiding several people through projects for their PhD or post doctoral work. Tahreem Siddiqui was studying video recordings of conversations with patients leaving the geriatric ward; Jenny Nordfalk had conducted an intervention study and was operationalizing behaviours neurologists were taught in an “information provision” course, using videorecorded simulated clinic visits, Berit Hofset Larsen was using a sample of videos from the Ahus corpus to study how patients with advanced cancer express their existential concerns; Julia Menichetti was curious about when physicians in Italian assisted reproductive therapy sessions said “I don’t know”  to patients: what were the various functions of the expression? I had been meeting regularly with each of them individually, but I noticed similar struggles, and we all decided everyone would benefit from discussing their projects with each other. In March 2020, we arranged a seminar for all five of us to meet in person at the hospital. But then, well you know what happened in March 2020.

I went back to Canada earlier than planned and nobody was meeting anybody. We got zoom up and running and we met online instead. We had enough fun together that we decided to meet weekly, with Pål Gulbrandsen often joining us as well. We somewhat whimsically termed our meetings “video freaks weekly”. We took turns bringing what we were working on, particularly focusing on something we needed help or advice with. I was working on evaluating an intervention for emergency call operators using recordings of calls before and after training, so I was happy to get feedback and advice also! Eventually, once everyone was getting more settled in the new situation, we decided to move to bi-weekly meetings.

photo from zoom of the first six participants at the Ahus microanalysis workshop, taken in April 2020

One of the first online meetings of the ahus microanalysis workshop, April 2020

And the meetings continue to today! We miss Jenny and Berit, who have finished their PhDs and moved on to new positions, and Pål has retired, but there is still a bi-weekly meeting! Tahreem and Julia are still regular attendees. The workshop involves around 20 participants from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, The Netherlands, Spain, Hungary, and the US. While most are focused on health care conversations, we also have participants focused on social work and therapy. We have attempted to adopt a less whimsical tone and now call it “microanalysis workshop”. We still laugh a lot though and try not to take ourselves too seriously.

We take turns presenting our projects to each other, and we often do some sort of observational practice together. I run and organize the workshops, Julia Menichetti, Kristina Edman, Christine Frigaard, and Arwen Pieterse are my advisory group, and Lene Østby and I have put together the package for microanalysis studio, which is our attempt to document how we observe video together, which you can find here.

  Publications workshopped:

  • Frigaard, C.F., Menichetti, J., Schirmer, H., Bjørnstad, H., Simonsen, T.B., Wisløff, T., Gulbrandsen, P., and Gerwing, J (2025) How do hospital and primary care doctors address heart failure patients’ disclosures of medication adherence problems? An exploratory interaction-based observational cohort study. BMJ Open;15:e098826. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2025-098826
  • Edman, K. (2025). Conversational Democracy: Facilitating Children’s ‘Unprompted Talk’in Social Work Dialogues. Child & Family Social Work. https://doi.org/10.1111/cfs.13318
  • Larsen, B. H., Gerwing, J., Lundeby, T., Gulbrandsen, P., & Førde, R. (2025) More than an extra set of ears: A video-based analysis exploring the role of next-of-kin in routine oncology visits. Journal of Psychosocial Oncology. https://doi.org/10.1080/07347332.2025.2457964
  • Frigaard, C.F., Menichetti, J., Schirmer, H., Bjørnstad, H., Simonsen, T.B., Wisløff, T., Gulbrandsen, P., and Gerwing, J (2024) What do patients with heart failure disclose about medication adherence at home to their hospital and primary care doctors? Exploratory interaction-based observational cohort study. BMJ Open. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmjopen-2024-086440
  • Edman, K., Gustafsson, A. W., & Cuadra, C. B. (2024). Facilitating children’s in-session involvement in child and family therapies: A dynamic framework of clinical practices. Psychotherapy, 61(1), 55. https://doi.org/10.1037/pst0000511
  • Menichetti, J., Gulbrandsen, P., Landmark, A., Lie, H., & Gerwing, J. (2024) How do physicians frame medical information in talks with their patients? An inductive microanalysis. Qualitative Health Research 34(1-2), 101-113. https://doi.org/10.1177/10497323231205152
  • Gerwing, J., White, A.E., & Henry, S. G. (2024) Communicative Practices Clinicians Use to Correct Patient Misconceptions in Primary Care Visits. Health Communication 39(12), 2682-2697. DOI: 10.1080/10410236.2023.2283658.
  • Østby, L., Gerwing, J., & Oterholm, I. (2023) Hvordan gir ansatte i barnevernet råd til foreldre? En analyse av rådgivning i hjelpetiltaket «råd og veiledning». Tidsskriftet Norges barnevern, 100, 240-259. https://doi.org/10.18261/tnb.100.4.4
  • Larsen, B. H., Lundeby, T., Gerwing, J., Gulbrandsen, P., & Førde, R. (2023) Alvorlig syke kreftpasienter kan kamuflere sine eksistensielle bekymringer. Sykepleien Forskning. DOI:10.4220/Sykepleiens.2023.93333  
  • Larsen, B. H., Gulbrandsen, P., Førde, R., Sundeby, T., Gerwing, J. (2022) Physicians’ responses to advanced cancer patients’ existential concerns: A video-based analysis. Patient Education and Counseling, 105(10), 3062-3070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2022.06.007
  • Larsen, B. H., Lundeby, T., Gerwing, J., Gulbrandsen, P., & Førde, R. (2022) “Eh – What type of cells are these – flourishing in the liver?” Cancer patients’ disclosure of existential concerns in routine hospital consultations. Patient Education and Counseling, 105 (7), 2019-2026. PMID: 34839995 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pec.2021.11.010
  • Nordfalk, J. M., Menichetti, J., Thomas, O., Gulbrandsen, P., & Gerwing, J., (2022) Three strategies when physicians provide complex information in interactions with patients: How to recognize and measure them. Patient Education and Counseling, 105(6), 1552-1560. PMID: 34711445
  • Gerwing, J., Steen-Hansen, J. E., Mjaaland, T., Fossli Jensen, B., Eielsen, O., Thomas, O., Gulbrandsen, P., (2021) Evaluating a training intervention for improving alignment between emergency medical telephone operators and callers: A pilot study of communication behaviours. Scandinavian Journal of Trauma, Resuscitation and Emergency Medicine, 29(1) 1-8. PMID: 34332640 DOI: 10.1186/s13049-021-00917-y
  • Menichetti, J., Gerwing, J., Borghi, L., Gulbrandsen, P., & Vegni, E. (2021) Saying “I don’t know”: A video-based study on physicians’ claims of no-knowledge in assisted reproductive technology consultations. Frontiers of Psychology, 11. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.611074 PMID: 3351068
  • Siddiqui, T. G., Cheng, S., Mellingsæter, M., Grambaite, R., Gulbrandsen, P., Lundqvist, C., & Gerwing, J. (2020). “What should I do when I get home?” treatment plan discussion at discharge between specialist physicians and older in-patients: mixed method study. BMC health services research, 20(1), 1-11. PMID: 33143713