About COMET

AIMS OF THE CONFERENCE:

The conference aims to bring together scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds involving various healthcare specialties and the human and social sciences.  A special emphasis will be on the dissemination of ongoing research in discourse/communication studies and practical ethics which engages directly with healthcare practitioners.

ABOUT COMET:

The conference, Communication, Medicine and Ethics (COMET) began in 2003 at Cardiff University (Wales, UK) to bring together communication researchers from different disciplinary backgrounds, ranging from healthcare specialties to the human and social sciences. Following the overwhelming success of the first conference (attended by more than 200 participants from 20 countries), which was hosted by the Health Communication Research Centre at Cardiff University, COMET has now established itself as an annual interdisciplinary, international event. Grounded in a problem-oriented approach, COMET places special emphasis on the dissemination of high quality research in discourse/communication and practical ethics which is directly relevant to healthcare practitioners.

COMET is now closely linked with the new journal Communication & Medicine, published quarterly (Equinox, London), with a view to bringing leading research to a wider readership. All presenters at the COMET 2010 conference will have the opportunity to submit their work for publication to an issue of the journal dedicated to the conference.

Since the launch of COMET in Cardiff in 2003, the conference has been hosted by Linköping University, Sweden (2004); jointly by Macquarie University and University of Sydney (2005), returning to Cardiff in its 4th year (2006), by University of Lugano, Switzerland (2007). The venue for the 6th COMET conference was Cape Town, organized through the University of Witwatersrand, South Africa (2007). The 7th COMET conference was hosted by the Health Communication Research Centre, Cardiff University (2009). The 8th COMET conference will take place at Boston University and is being co-sponsored by the Center for Health Quality, Outcomes & Economic Research (CHQOER), Bedford, MA and Boston University.