The Living Medical History Project was initiated by the History of Medicine Section of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland in 2012. The project sought to record the unique memories of medical practitioners who have worked in Ireland over the last seventy years.
The project consists of interviews with ten medical practitioners representing a cross-section of medical fields and specialities. Seven of the interviewees hail from the Republic of Ireland, and three from Northern Ireland. Interviews were conducted by Susan Mullaney, Honorary Secretary of the History of Medicine Section of the Royal Academy of Medicine in Ireland, and by Ida Milne, a member of the Oral History Network of Ireland, in 2012 and 2013. In addition to audio recordings, transcripts of the interviews were produced. The audio recordings will be withheld for ten years, while the transcripts (which have been edited where appropriate) are available to consult in the Heritage Centre of the Royal College of Physicians of Ireland.
Throughout their working lives, these doctors accumulated a vast knowledge of professional practice. This project has recorded their unique memories to help others learn from the past, and to document the enormous changes that have taken place during their lifetimes. The testimony of the ten interviewees provides a unique insight into a type of practice that has all but disappeared. They worked with diseases that are no longer common, such as polio and tuberculosis, and in an environment that did not have MRI scanners, CT scanners, or in some cases, access to antibiotics. The interviews also sheds light on changes that occurred in individual specialities over the last seventy years, the many advances in medical treatment, medical training, the experiences of medics in the Second World War, and the family and social lives of medics.
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Extract from transcript of Living Medical History interview with Dr James Slein, a former general practitioner in north Dublin city (LMH/10)
The Living Medical History oral history collection is fully searchable on the online RCPI archive catalogue, and a PDF of the collection list is also available to download and browse.
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