Call for Proposals

We are happy to announce the call for proposals for the 21st International and Interdisciplinary Conference on Communication, Medicine, and Ethics (COMET), which will be hosted by University College Cork, Ireland, 20-22 June, 2023. The Pre-COMET Masterclass is scheduled for 19 June, 2023.

The COMET conference aims to bring together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds involving various healthcare specialties and the human and social sciences. A special emphasis is on the dissemination of ongoing research in language/discourse/communication studies in relation to healthcare education, patient participation and professional ethics.

The proposal deadline for COMET 2023 is now closed.

Plenary Speakers

COMET 2023 will feature the following plenary speakers:

Professor Mary Catherine Beach, Johns Hopkins University, USA
Dr Caroline Jagoe, Trinity College, Dublin
Professor Hossam Hamdy, Gulf Medical University, United Arab Emirates

Conference themes

We are looking for proposals on the following themes:

Client-Professional Encounters (involving doctors, counsellors, nurses, pharmacists, dentists, speech and language therapists, psychotherapists, etc.)
Communication Impairment and Disability
Communicating Risk and Uncertainty
Communication Skills Training
Distributed Expertise among Professionals and Clients
Ethics and Communication
Evidence in Diagnosis and Non-Diagnosis
Health and Disability
Healthcare in Multilingual and Multicultural Contexts
Healthcare Education
Health, Wellbeing and the Lifespan
Health Literacy
Health Technologies and Medical Informatics
Interpreter Mediated Healthcare Delivery
Intercultural Communication in Health
Interprofessional Communication and Hospital Management Systems
Media and Health Communication
Narratives of Illness Experience
Public Understanding of Health and Illness
Quality of Life and Quality of Care
Representation of the Body
Research Ethics
(Shared) Decision Making
Tailoring Health Messages
Telehealth
Values and Responsibilities in Professional Practice

Submission Guidelines

We have proposal guidlines for panels, individual presentations (oral or poster) and work-in-progress sessions.

Please note:

Panels

Panels should address a common theme, content or methodological area, and will be scheduled for 90 minutes or multiples of 90 minutes. A 90-minute panel usually includes 3 component presentations.

For panel submissions, please include a) an overview description of no more than 300 words highlighting the panel’s content and objectives, and including 3-5 key words; b) an abstract of no more than 250 words for each individual presentation within the panel. Also provide information about the panel members and the coordinator, and indicate how many 90-minute slots you are requesting.

Individual papers (oral or poster)

Proposals for individual papers (no more than 250 words) must clearly indicate a preference for oral or poster presentation. Following the peer review process, the organisers will determine whether a proposal is selected for oral or poster presentation. Poster presenters must be present to discuss their work during the dedicated sessions. Oral presentations will typically be scheduled in sessions of 90 minutes, with 30 minutes (20 minutes for presentation + 10 minutes for discussion) allocated to each individual presentation.

Work-in-progress session

Proposals for work-in-progress should be no more than 250 words targeted at oral presentation. The presentations will be in sessions of 90 minutes, with individual presentations lasting 30 minutes (15 minutes for presentation + 15 minutes for discussion). This format is particularly suitable for early career researchers pursuing doctoral and postdoctoral studies and for experienced researchers undertaking/planning pilot projects or interested in reporting preliminary results. Please indicate clearly if your proposal falls into this category.

Proposal Selection Criteria

All proposals undergo a double-blind peer-review process.

Please note that COMET conference policy is one main oral presentation per first-named author. You may choose to submit more than one proposal, but normally only one proposal will be accepted for oral presentation. Any additional accepted proposals may be presented as poster(s).

There is no fixed format for writing proposals but authors are urged to attend to the following criteria which will form the basis for peer review:

originality of the topic and its relevance to the conference
background contextualisation of the study
relationship between title and content structural organisation
theoretical/methodological appropriateness
clarity of claims and relevance

Individual panels are reviewed in their entirety on the above criteria but also on the basis of their relevance to broader issues in communication, medicine, and ethics; the overall coherence of the proposal; and the usefulness of the panel to participants.

Decisions about acceptance/rejection will be communicated by mid-March 2023. Following formal acceptance, the responsible (presenting) authors must register participation prior to the finalisation of the conference programme. Early registration opens on 15 March 2023.

Contact Details

Email comet2023@ucc.ie for further details regarding submission guidelines or for additional information about the conference.

COMET Conference 2023

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Call for Proposals