Francesca Bosisio works at the Lausanne University Hospital (Switzerland) and is an associate researcher at the Health Psychology Research Centre and at the Interface Science-Society of the University of Lausanne. She studied health psychology and sociology of sciences and received an in-depth training in research methodologies, both quantitative and qualitative. She was a Visting Fellow with the Program on Science, Technology and Society (STS) at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government in 2016-2017. Her studies focus on the broad consent to genomic medicine and the public’s perceptions. 

During her PhD work, she studied deceased and living organ donation decisions. Her work highlighted that gift-giving logics are more influential in deceased organ donation. This is particularly true when this decision happens in intensive care units, where families and healthcare professionals need to make sense out of the failure of medical technologies. After her PhD she pursued her research by studying patients’ motivations to participate to the Lausanne Institutional (hospital-based) Biobank. Results suggest that information and uncertainties inherent to the broad consent play a poor role in patient’s decision. Willingness to give tissues results from the patient’s perceptions of institutions, medical research and researchers. Both her studies indicate that trust is an important driver of decisions in hospital settings. Thus, during her stay at Harvard, she will deepen her prior analysis and link her findings. She expect her work to contribute to adapt policies, public discourses and practice.

At home, Francesca led the creation of multidisciplinary cancer centres and burn and trauma centres at Lausanne University Hospital. After college, she worked at the Robert Bosch laboratory as a specialized cognitive psychologist in the study of eye-movements in head-up GPS displays. She also received a training in clinical psychology by working bedside to patients with HIV.

Publications

Bosisio, F., Santiago-Delefosse, M., Benaroyo, L. Taking a deceased organ donation decision at the crossroad of affective and public health issues. In: Schicktanz S., Randhawa G. (eds.) Public Engagement in Organ Donation and Transplantation. Lengerich, Germany: Pabst Science Editors, pp. 80-90, 2013.