Biography

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Dr. Beach’s  research focuses on conversational and institutional interactions, and their convergence, including patient-doctor communication in preventive, oncological, and surgical medical interviews and how families talk through cancer diagnosis and treatment. His research and teaching (e.g., on health/medicine, ordinary conversations, and law) are grounded in the analysis of naturally occurring recordings and transcriptions of everyday life activities.

He is currently collaborating with oncologists and surgeons at UCSD to discover fundamental communication patterns between patients and providers – basic knowledge which can hopefully be utilized to improve quality care and enhance healing outcomes. These inquiries into ordinary human interactions provide innovative approaches to understanding communication in casual and institutional health care contexts, including video-review projects and designing communication mentoring programs. He has also collaborated with medical professionals to better understand how adult health status (e.g., involving obesity, chest pain, and depression) are rooted in adverse childhood experiences and dysfunctional communication environments. In addition, Dr. Beach has conducted research and consulted with several start-up companies focusing on innovations in medical technology, patient connectivity, and e-communication.

 Dr. Beach is working on two lengthy books – the first natural history of families talking through cancer on the telephone, and an edited volume on patient-provider interactions – both of which will be published by Hampton Press in 2006. He has guest-edited special journal issues focusing on “Lay Diagnosis” and the "Sequential Organization of Conversational Activities", and is author of Conversations about illness: Family preoccupations with bulimia (1996, Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates).

Wayne A. Beach, Ph.D.
Professor, School of Communication
San Diego State University
San Diego, CA 92182-4561
wbeach@mail.sdsu.edu
619-594-4948
FAX: 619-594-6246