In response to some of her experiences in developing countries, Dr. D’Antonio trained as a facilitator and mediator. She has used these skills to bring about innovative, consensus driven solutions to complex problems providing communication, facilitation and training services.

For example, Dr. D’Antonio relied heavily on her facilitation background in her efforts to increase services for individuals with cleft palate.  In India she organized a consensus conference that resulted in strategies for harnessing community based rehab specialists to provide speech services for children with cleft palate in rural regions of India.   Similarly she organized a consensus conference in Sub-Saharan Africa that developed strategies for increasing cleft care in Africa.  The goals and strategies developed at this consensus conference are still guiding principles in cleft care on the continent several years later.

Dr. D’Antonio has also used her extensive research experience and vast cross cultural awareness to conduct groundbreaking research about the sources and amount of provider conflict in healthcare. The hallmark of Dr. D’Antonio’s work is her appreciation of healthcare as a unique culture and the relationship between institutional or group culture, communication processes and conflict and how these factors are related to patient care and provider quality of life. She has compiled important information regarding the most appropriate models for training physicians in conflict resolution skills.  She has provided conflict management training for physicians and other heath care workers in civilian and military hospitals in the US and abroad.

Click here for some of Dr. D’Antono’s writings on facilitation