Abstract
In the Spring of 2007 Dr Ruth Richardson gave a talk to the Retired Fellows Society (RFS) of the Royal Society of Medicine (RSM) on the subject of memoirs and urged everyone to record their experiences, lodging these with family and friends. Discussions following this revealed that several Fellows had already written about their experiences for family members but few wished to write autobiographies for publication or to send articles to journals of medical biography. On reflection it was felt that their stories should be available to a wider field and that creating an archive might be the answer. The enthusiasm for an archive was based on the fact that most retired Fellows had lived through a unique period of enormous change in health care which, it was felt, ought to be recorded for posterity. It was proposed the archive should best be lodged in an established library capable of storing and cataloguing the material that could then be readily available. An exploratory survey of retired Fellows showed huge enthusiasm for the idea.
What then does this archive contain? It was decided that the net should be spread as widely as possible, encouraging contributions from doctors, dentists, vets and all involved in health care. It was felt important to encourage contributions from those who might never have written an article before and who might have thought their memories uninteresting. Contributions could be as long or as short as the spirit moved. The style of the material was not too important; obtaining the story was more important. It was envisaged that the content would include memories or experiences as a student, a young doctor, the development of new services and techniques, the advent of the NHS and its impact, as well as recollections of mentors, colleagues and distinguished personalities. A governing principle was that all contributions must relate to health care, excluding personal biographies that did not relate to this. It was also decided that published articles would not be accepted as these were already available in the public domain and already saved for posterity.
Given these objectives, care had to be exercised to avoid defamatory remarks and infringement of privacy law. A panel of assessors was established to vet all contributions in respect of this. In addition all contributors must sign a Memorandum of Agreement declaring that the contribution did not invade any individual's right of privacy and did not contain defamatory material. It was agreed that copyright must be passed to the RSM Library with the right of contributors to withdraw material for subsequent publication at a later date.
If it were intended that contributions were to be sought from all and sundry, some method of collection and storage had to be available without the significant costs generated by publishing houses. To address this, it was agreed that all contributions must be received in electronic form either as attachments to emails or, with very long contributions, as CDs and stored in electronic form. This would allow an almost infinite storage capacity. A mechanism for implementing this already existed at the RSM in the form of the Virtual Library Users Group (VLUG) and storage and cataloguing could be taken over by a member of the library staff already involved in this.
As the objective of the archive is to capture and store memories of all sorts of aspects of the lives of those involved in health care, it was felt important that these memories be both guarded and yet available to bona fide historians. All contributions are published on the RSM members-only website and can be accessed by any member of the RSM. For those without access to the web, a catalogue of contents may be obtained from the library. If articles are then wanted, these are provided in hard copy for a small sum. Historians who are not members of the RSM can seek access through the Librarian of the RSM.
Contributions to the archive were first invited at the end of 2008. Since then there have been around 80 contributions. These have been hugely varied from recollections of general practice before the introduction of the NHS to detailed descriptions of the development of genetic medicine in the UK. National Service both for British doctors and for those in Canada has been described, as have amusing short stories of experiences in African townships. As hoped, the development of new innovative forms of health care has been recorded as well as the introduction of sophisticated new technology. Descriptions of the development of medical specialties as seen from the eyes of those involved give a new perspective. Many contributions are quite short and would not merit publication in a conventional journal. Various contributors have remarked that they feel happier contributing to an archive rather than preparing a paper for a journal. Others have said that they had thought of recording their experiences but were rather daunted by the idea of writing an autobiography, in part because of possible expense. Some contributions are absolutely fascinating and some not so exciting but all are important records.
Problems have been minimal. Three papers have been turned down since they were not personal recollections but rather criticisms of the work of others. One contributor declined to sign the Memorandum of Agreement. A few contributions have been edited to remove material not relevant to health care.
We may well be considered prejudiced but we would suggest this is a new and valuable vehicle for capturing history. It has an infinite capacity for recording memories that is informal and undemanding. There is no rejection of genuine health care recollections and no need for complicated authorship. Inevitably there will be the good, the bad and the brilliant. Often that is in the eye of the beholder. An archive such as this is not judgmental.