Welcome to Diabetes Stories

Professionals

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Interview (random selection)

Born in Manchester in 1922.
Occupation: GP
Overview: : Dr. Joe Needoff was a GP in an old-established Black Country practice from 1951 to 1989. He had a few, mainly elderly, patients with diabetes, but issued very few prescriptions for insulin and never saw a young person with diabetes. At first he had no nurse to help him, so did urine tests himself and, when he needed a chaperone, he called on his wife or another patient. The waiting-room was often crowded, as there was no appointment system. He saw no increase in diabetes throughout his career and had no diabetic clinic: ‘there was no necessity for it.`

There is also an interview with another Black Country GP, from one generation later, Dr. Richard Gee.

Click [Here] to view

Healthcare Professionals

Here you can listen to 30 healthcare professionals - doctors, nurses, dietitians, podiatrists and one lay educator ï¿½ recalling memories of every aspect of their working lives. They talk about their relationships with patients and colleagues as well as changes in treatment, technology, and the health service. The earliest memory is from 1940 and the most recent from 2008.

The interviewees include some pioneers in diabetes care, but also those who had little specialist knowledge ï¿½ to match the wide range of care described by people with diabetes who had already been recorded for this website.

Some of the people with diabetes describe being treated by pioneers such as R.D. Lawrence, co-founder of the British Diabetic Association, but others were treated by people who were not specialists, including family doctors (GPs) who had rarely encountered diabetes. Our aim was to choose interviewees who would represent the variety of care provided over a period of nearly 70 years.

Those who had already written about their work were asked to provide a selection of up to 12 of their publications. (Click on Publications on their individual page.) However, these interviews are not primarily about scientific developments already well documented, but rather about how these developments affected ï¿½ or did not affect - the daily lives of healthcare professionals and their patients.

(In addition to 25 interviews that are mainly about professional experience, we have included in this section 2 interviews with people with diabetes and 3 with family members who have also been involved in diabetes care.)

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