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Francesca Dakin

Research Assistant

Francesca is an anthropologist and research assistant, working primarily on THIS-funded projects concerning maternity safety and a Wellcome-funded project on differential diagnosis in the acute care setting.

Her involvement extends across the research process; including assistance with literature reviews, research governance processes, gathering and analysing qualitative data (through ethnographic observations and semi-structured interviews), and writing research reports and manuscript drafts.

Francesca holds a BA in Archaeology and Anthropology from University College London and an MPhil in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge. She also has experience working in museological, medical, and global health organisations. Her educational and professional backgrounds have honed a particular attention to the lived experiences of individuals working in, or moving through, healthcare and institutional settings. It has also fostered an appreciation for the complexity of interactions therein, and the importance of interdisciplinarity in teams analysing those interactions.

Research Interests

Francesca’s current research interests, outside of the above projects, include 1) the place of ethics, empathy, and detachment in professional medicine and medical studies, 2) the effect of digitalising the medical encounter, and 3) the process of clinical self-formation in medical students.

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