PhD position (m/f/d) on "Effects of team interaction during diagnostic decision making in the emergency room" (100%, 4 years)

Applications are invited for a fully funded PhD studentship. The PhD project aims to contribute to a better understanding of the beneficial and hindering effects of team interactions during medical diagnosis. As part of the PhD, you will develop a new observation tool that allows assessing team performance during diagnostic tasks. For this, you will review existing tools, and test and validate the new tool in a simulation study involving real emergency room teams. Moreover, you will conduct two behavioral lab experiments that investigate the effects of team interaction (vs. no or limited interaction) on the diagnostic process and outcomes.

Who we are
The CoMind Lab is part of the Diagnostic Quality Lab at the Department of Emergency Medicine at the University of Bern, Switzerland, and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) with a Starting Grant to Prof. Dr. Juliane Kämmer. Our research group seeks to provide a clearer understanding of how decision-making in medical diagnosis and other high-risk areas can be improved to help enhance diagnoses in the long term. 

Incorrect medical diagnoses are unfortunately common and some of them can have serious consequences for patients. However, there is a limited understanding of the circumstances under which such errors occur and of how effective collaboration within the diagnostic team can help prevent them. We are specifically interested in better understanding diagnosis as a team-based activity. For example, we investigate the interplay between cognitive and collaborative processes and how to best time team phases during the diagnostic process. For this, we engage in a continuous dialogue with practitioners to get input for our (basic) research and develop output (such as trainings) that is valuable for practice. We rely on a wide array of methods, ranging from behavioral experiments, simulations, meta-analyses, and ethnography. We leverage theoretical approaches from a variety of disciplines and collaborate with an international interdisciplinary network.

The main workplace will be the University of Bern, Department of Emergency Medicine. The University of Bern and University Hospital offer a highly dynamic research environment that supports interdisciplinary research and its translation into practice. The research groups at the Department of Emergency Medicine have extensive experience in investigating teamwork, diagnostic processes in the emergency room, and are renowned for their research on
diagnostic excellence.

Your responsibilities
- Literature search, data collection, data analysis
- Project management, including contact to the field, other researchers, relevant authorities
- Written and oral presentation of findings internally and externally at international conferences
- Course work as required by the graduate school GHS
- Active participation in the CoMind Lab´s research environment

Your qualifications
- Completed Master's degree in the field of psychology, behavioral or social science, or cognitive science
- Interest in the topic of team decision processes in medical diagnosis
- Basic R-skills and the motivation to expand on them
- Interest in conducting experiments and simulation studies
- Very good organizational skills, eye for detail and high degree of reliability
- Willing to work independently as well as in an interdisciplinary team
- Good communication skills in spoken and written English and German
- Ideally, first experiences with research in the field

What we offer
- Work at the interface of basic research in behavioral science / psychology and its practical application in the medical domain
- Integration into the Graduate School for Health Sciences (GHS) including the possibility to participate in transferable and research skills courses
- Access to a large international network of researchers, practitioners and other PhD students (e.g., in the Tools4Teams network)
- Possibility to take part in national and international conferences
- Flat hierarchies, communication at eye level, supportive supervision, open-minded atmosphere
- Flexible working hours with home office options
- Competitive salary (CHF 48‘821 p.a. in year 1 to CHF 51‘964 in year 3 and 4)

We look forward to receiving your informative application consisting of a letter of motivation, curriculum vitae, certificates and other supporting documents, and two references. Please send them in a single PDF document to Prof. Dr. Juliane Kämmer, University of Bern, juliane.kaemmer@unibe.ch until April 30, 2025.

For details, please visit our website: https://notfallmedizin.insel.ch/de/lehre-und-forschung/forschungsschwerp...