In September 2016 the 14th International Conference on Communication in Healthcare took place in Heidelberg, Germany. Before the main conference started, I was one of the lucky 16 who took part in the pre-conference workshop „What to Teach in Communication Skills Teaching: Skills, Structure, and How to Analyse an Observed Interaction“. Before going to Germany I wasn’t sure what to expect, as communication research is done by health-care providers, psychologists and linguists alike.

The pre-conference workshop was very helpful to get insights into the topic structure. In many role-plays and video-vignettes I was encouraged to look at human communication in a broader way than I was used to do it for my research.

After two days and many important insights from the workshop, the conference started and more than 600 people with the same interests filled the auditorium of the New University of Heidelberg.

The opening speech by Prof. Gerd Gigerenzer was the start of many interesting talks, posters and meetings: I met Swiss members of the European Association of Communication in Healthcare (EACH), I was able to meet people with similar research projects from all over the world and I was overwhelmed with the interest in our research from health-care providers and researchers alike.

Taken all together, it was a wonderful experience and I’m looking forward to future meetings, talks and experiences in this field.