Oral History of Diabetes in the 20th Centure - Experiences of Patient Care. (360G-Wellcome-080147_Z_06_Z)

Last year we completed an oral history of experiences of patients diagnosed between 1927 and 1997, which is accessible worldwide at www.diabetes-stories.com. We now wish to enlarge this historical record by interviewing those who cared for patients. The initial goal is to interview 20-25 relatives/carers of patients and 20-25 health professionals, whose memories cover the second half of the 20th century. Selection would come through existing contacts and recommendations from medical staff, patients, and Diabetes UK. We would choose interviewees from a range of geographical, social and racial backgrounds. The next goal is to make complete recordings and transcripts of the interviews accessible on a website and readily usable for research. Indexed summaries would provide instant links to the recording or transcript of a chosen section of an interview; we would create an interactive database and word and phrase search tools. We would also list themes that we've identified, with links to relevant interview sections. The website would include written descriptions of each interviewee, edited audio extracts, and photos of people, documents and equipment. The preparation of the database, transcripts, indexed summaries, interviewee descriptions, and photos; the audio editing, and the selection of themes would represent a large proportion of the work proposed.