Dr Sarah White

Photo of a woman with short dark hair, wearing a necklace and black shirt. She is smiling at the camera.

Dr Sarah White, Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Social Impact UNSW (CSI UNSW) , is a conversation analyst and qualitative health researcher.

Sarah has worked in clinical communication and safety, quality research, teaching, and policy for the past 15 years. Her research focus is on improving communication between clinicians and patients.

As an educator, Sarah creates authentic learning experiences to support students to become critical thinkers and resilient professionals. This approach is designed to assist in developing learner capacity to analyse the quality of information, communicate and work in teams, and critically consider ethical, social, and professional challenges.

She aims to instil that same intense focus and commitment to evidence-informed student learning in those that she mentors and within the teams she leads.

Sarah’s accomplishments and reflective approach to learning and teaching were recognised through being awarded Senior Fellow of Advance HE (SFHEA) in 2019.

Sarah contributes to the field of communication in healthcare through her active membership of the International Association for Communication in Healthcare (EACH) since 2015.

In 2018 she was elected Deputy National Representative and through that, and her role in the policy and practice subcommittee at an international level, she worked to make further connections between research, teaching, and policy, particularly through the development of a social media strategy.

Sarah recently led the development of an international position paper relating to policy and practice around communication in healthcare in response to COVID-19. In 2021, Sarah was elected National Representative and has been working on developing a framework around communication in clinical practice.

sarah.white@unsw.edu.au