Annelieke Driessen

I am a medical anthropologist interested in the role patient knowledge can play in improving care for life at the margins. My work is situated at the intersections of medical anthropology, medical sociology, and science and technology studies (STS).

I joined the department in August 2022 as an ethnographer exploring what happened in general practices (GP practices) that introduced innovations designed to improve access to appointments.

I am an experienced ethnographer of care practices: I have worked in different parts of the health care sector, including hospitals, nursing homes and the community setting. I obtained my PhD at the University of Amsterdam in 2019 with a thesis on dementia care in the Netherlands, in which I explored what care practices contributed to subject positions that people with dementia deemed ‘good’. In May 2018 I joined the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to contribute to the Forms of Care project, an ethnography of practices of non-intervention in UK end-of-life care.

My work is characterised by a committed to collaboration with patients, family members and health care providers in all stages of the research process, and to making research findings relevant for the people the work pertains to. Between September 2020 and August 2022 I conducted an interview-based study on patients’ and family members’ experiences of Intensive Care with Covid as part of my research fellowship (funded by The Healthcare Improvement Studies Institute, part of the University of Cambridge) with the help of an advisory panel consisting of clinicians, patients and next of kin. Based on the analysis of 40 interviews I compiled the module ‘Experiences intensive care and COVID19’ on Healthtalk.org and facilitated focus groups with stakeholder to generate lessons for practice and policy.

Passionate about teaching and learning with students, I am currently co-supervisor to three PhD students. I am open to be contacted about supervision of MSc and co-supervision of PhD projects about understanding and learning from patient experiences and patient positions at the margins of life and at the healthcare system, with a view to strengthening and improving care in practice.

I am an Honorary Assistant Professor of Medical anthropology at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.