This study aims to fill a gap in current knowledge about the important role that South Asian geriatricians have played in the development of the discipline in the UK during the mid twentieth century. In 1990-1 Professor Margot Jefferys recorded some oral histories with health personnel involved in the development of this specialty and these interviews have been archived at the British Library for the benefit of future students and researchers. However, the untimely death of Margot meant that she could not adequately extend this work to look at the contributions of overseas health professionals and there is only one record of an interview with a South Asian geriatrician despite some discussion in the other interviews that South Asians actually played a crucial part in the development of this field. This research will try to fill this gap by collating oral history interviews with 60 South Asian geriatricians, retired and currently in employment. Along with secondary analysis of the original interviews we hope to provide a fuller picture of the history of geriatrics and the important role that South Asians have played and are still playing in this field. The study will also provide an analytical model that can be applied to more contemporary forms of medical migration.
We aim to interview sixty South Asian overseas-trained doctors who worked or who still work as geriatricians in the NHS. Of this sixty we hope to interview forty geriatricians who entered the NHS between around 1950 and 1975, who are currently retired. Another twenty of these interviews will be undertaken with those who have migrated to work in the UK during the last three decades in order to bring the story up to the present. We also want to get a sample that includes men and women and doctors who worked or are still working at various grades.
It is not compulsory for you to take part. If you agree to take part you will be asked to sign a consent form. But please note that you will still be free to withdraw at any time and we will not ask you to give any reasons if you choose to do so.
The aim of this project is to create an archive of interviews with a group of medical practitioners whose contribution to the NHS has so far gone unrecorded. We are also seeking answers to questions relating to professional and personal career development and experiences of working in the NHS, as a medical migrant.
We trust that the interview will provide you with an opportunity to relive some of your experiences, of the difficulties and the pleasures of working in an emerging discipline and of the networks that were formed in this endeavour. We also hope that you will find it rewarding to have your contributions recognised publicly and that you will be pleased to have an opportunity to add your account to a historically significant collection of archived interviews.
If you agree to take part we will arrange an interview with you and will audio record the interview. We would prefer to interview you in your own home but if you would rather have the interview at your place of work or somewhere else convenient to you, that too could be arranged.
The interview will most probably be carried out by Dr Leroi Henry, the research fellow employed to work on this project and will last between two and three hours. We will invite you to follow the development of the project by logging on to the project website and also to attend a seminar planned for the end of the project when findings will be presented to an audience including members of the medical profession, agencies with an interest in older people’s health care and policy makers.
We hope that the experience of taking part will be enjoyable. However, as in all memory work we are aware that some sad experiences might also be recalled.
The interviews will be transcribed and stored digitally (using Nvivo, ACDSee for Pentax and Real Player programmes). This data will be held at the Open University for the two year duration of the project, responsibility for which will be held by the two research managers: Professor Joanna Bornat and Dr. Parvati Raghuram.
Personal data on workstation fixed hard discs have adequate protection e.g. password access to files to prevent unauthorised access. Personal data will be stored on a stand alone PC not connected to a network or the internet.
Contact detail sheets will be removed and stored separately in locked cabinets. Custody of the key will fall to Professor Joanna Bornat, Dr Parvati Raghuram and Dr Leroi Henry.
The project team is proposing to deposit a digitised version of the interview data at the UK Data Archive (ESDS Qualidata, University of Essex) and audio recordings and hard copies of the transcripts at the British Library Sound Archive. In the British Library they will take their place alongside the Margot Jefferys’ collection.
The aim of this project is to identify the routes, networks and strategies adopted by overseas-trained South-Asian doctors as they made their way in the NHS. For this reason, it would not be ideal for us to fully or even partially anonymise data whose significance will lie in accounts of personal achievement as well as organisational constraints and opportunities.
However, if you prefer to close your contribution, for a period of time, or to have it anonymised, this will be possible and will be carried out in line with current guidelines relating to ethical research practice and in discussion with you.
All those who take part in interviews will be offered copies of the interview transcripts and a summary of research findings. The research findings are likely to be published in working papers for the funding body, academic journal articles and books. A final project report will be made available at an end of project seminar and a copy of this will be presented to each participant.
Publications or reports which come out of the project may use quotations of your words from the research interview. In your consent form you will be asked to confirm that you are happy for your quotations to be used. The research team will check with participants how quotations should be attributed. It is also possible that after archiving that your words may be used by other researchers or academics with the permission of the research team. You will also be asked in your consent form if you are happy with this.
The research team is made up of: Professor Joanna Bornat, Dr. Parvati Raghuram and Dr Leroi Henry. The research is based at the Open University in the Faculty of Health and Social Care. The research is funded by the Economic and Social Research Council.
The research team are experienced researchers and academics who, between them have a wide experience of research both archival and in the field. This research is also supported by the British Geriatric Society and British Association of Physicians of Indian Origin.
This study has been ethically reviewed by the Open University and Human Participants an Materials Ethics Committee and is under consideration by the National Research Ethics Service of the National Patients Safety Agency. (submitted Nov 2007).
Prior to this, and in order to secure funding, the research was reviewed for the ESRC by five anonymous academic peer reviewers.
If you wish to participate or require further information please contact Dr Leroi Henry