Dr. Julia Rehsmann

Responsibilities

Deputy Head of Innovation Field Psycho-Social Health
Senior researcher aR&D Nursing
Supervision of MSc Theses

Focus areas

Biography

I am a medical anthropologist and senior research fellow at the Bern University of Applied Sciences. As deputy head of the research unit "Psychosocial Health" in Nursing Research at the Department of Health Professions, I am involved in personnel and strategy development as well as the supervision of an interdisciplinary research team. I supervise bachelor's and master's students in nursing and medical anthropology and teach regularly at the University of Lucerne. In my daily work, I am committed to fostering collaboration and knowledge transfer between anthropology and nursing, bridging the gap between basic and applied research and between science and practice.

Most recently, I've led the collaborative research project "Pandemic Objects", which used (design-) ethnographic research methods to explore how the Covid-19 pandemic affected everyday work in a Swiss hospital and was published as a special exhibition in the online museum of the Medical Collection Inselspital Bern. Until recently, I've been working as a postdoctoral researcher on the interdisciplinary research project "Sterbesettings/Settings of Dying", a collaboration with the Bern University of the Arts and the Zurich University of the Arts and funded by the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF), on inpatient palliative care in Switzerland. In this project, I was particularly interested in gender in health care and the negotiation of expertise in interdisciplinary and transprofessional settings.
My PhD research focused on liver transplants and temporality in Germany, exploring the existential, political and technological dimensions of waiting in transplant medicine. I conducted research on this topic as part of the "Intimate Uncertainties" project, funded by the SNSF, and was a visiting scholar at the Brocher Foundation in Geneva and an SNSF-funded Doc.Mobility fellow at the University of Liverpool. Based on the findings of the "Intimate Uncertainties" project, I co-authored the book "Hope" with Sarah Hildebrand, Gerhild Perl and Veronika Siegl to promote public engagement and knowledge transfer between social anthropology, art and the public.

My research interests include organ transplants, palliative and end-of-life care, as well as gender medicine/health, temporality, expertise, and the hospital as more than a medical space. I have conducted hospital ethnographies and fieldwork in transplant clinics, city hospitals and university hospitals in Germany and Switzerland. Recently, I have become increasingly interested in interdisciplinary and participatory research, especially collaborations with design and health research.

Professional experience

07/2023-ongoing Senior research fellow Bern University of Applied Sciences, Department of Health Professions, aR&D Nursing
04/2022-10/2024 Senior research fellow Bern University, Institute of Social Anthropology
01/2020-06/2023 Postdoc Bern University of Applied Sciences, Department of Health Professions, aR&D Nursing
08/2018-07/2020 Assistant Bern University, Institute of Social Anthropology
08/2019-10/2019 Visiting research fellow Brocher Foundation
09/2017-07/2018 Visiting research student University of Liverpool
02/2015-01/2018 Guest researcher University Hospital Leipzig
08/2015-09/2015 Guest researcher Charité University Hospital Berlin
02/2014-08/2017 Doctoral student in SNSF project "Intimate Uncertainties" (SNSF grant no. 149368) Bern University, Institute of Social Anthropology

Other projects

Prec(ar)ious Live(r)s: An Anthropological Engagement with Failing Livers and the Promises of Transplant Medicine - applicant URL: https://www.brocher.ch/en/chercheurs/julia-rehsmann
The Liver's Time: Temporality and Precarity in Liver Transplant Medicine (SNSF Doc.Mobility grant no.175223) - applicant
Intimate Uncertainties: Precarious Life and Moral Economy Across European Borders (SNSF grant no.149368) - PhD research