New work to catalogue patient case notes

We’ve recently been awarded a grant from the Wellcome Trust’s Research Resources in Medical History (RRMH) programme to carry out a two-year project to catalogue patient case notes. This is exciting new work for us and, in fact, we don’t know of anyone else in the archive sector who has been cataloguing patient case notes in the kind of detail we will be. We aim to catalogue the four collections of Norman Dott’s case notes that we hold (approximately 26,600 dating from 1920 to 1960), and also produce a methodology that we can share with other archives that hold similar material.

Norman Dott’s case notes hold an enormous amount of information that can help us understand how the diagnosis and treatment of neurological disorders developed during the twentieth century. Professor Norman Dott (1897-1973) had an international reputation in his field: early in his career he was awarded a Rockefeller Fellowship which enabled him to train in the United States under Harvey Cushing, father of modern neurosurgery. In 1924 he returned to Edinburgh and began a career in surgical neurology, holding posts at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and the Royal Edinburgh Hospital for Sick Children, and in 1937 he established the Royal Infirmary’s new Surgical Neurology Unit. He was the pioneer of many new procedures, for example intracranial aneurysm surgery, and he often designed innovative equipment to assist him in his work. He founded the Brain Injuries Unit at Bangour Hospital, West Lothian, during World War II, and became the University of Edinburgh’s first Professor of Surgical Neurology in 1947.

Although LHSA is experienced in providing long-term preservation care to our one million case notes (so far we’ve had five RRMH project grants to conserve about 30% of them), we’ve not been able to catalogue these items to open them up as a research resource until now. We hope that this work will increase the research demand for our case notes, and we will make sure that the use of the catalogue and of the case notes themselves is in line with legislation on patient confidentiality. (More information about patient confidentiality and access to LHSA-held records is available here.)

 Case notes that have been previously conserved, now to be catalogued in our new project

  
We recruited the Project Archivist last week and work will begin in early September – expect more blogs about the case note cataloguing once it gets underway! We’re delighted that the Wellcome Trust has agreed to fund this project, and thank them for their support.

New accession: photos of the Scottish Dental Estimates Board

One of the most enjoyable aspects of being an archivist is opening up mysterious packages to discover historical items. As highlighted in a tweet last week, we recently received such an accession; two parcels packaged in newspaper, and covered in bubble wrap, about which we knew very little except that they contained photos from the Scottish Dental Estimates Board (SDEB).
 

Closer inspection reveals that there are 10, framed, black and white photographs from the SDEB (now known as the Scottish Dental Practice Board) covering the period c.1949-1981. They are all formal shots, some showing the full Board, and others of individual members. As well as providing the identities of the SDEB members, photographs are always interesting because they provide a glimpse of earlier times and what may at first glance appear dull or of little value, can actually provide a wealth of historical information, ranging from fashions and technology, to hierarchy and gender relations. For example, of the six group shots from 1949 to 1970, none includes a female dentist and over that 21 year period, the standard dress code appears to have remained the same: a suit with waistcoat, and pocket handkerchief!

SDEB 1949 (Acc 12/026)

This accession will fit well with our existing dentistry collections (for a full list, see our dentistry webpage), and also with related collections including the Public Health Department and the Blood Transfusion Service.

A dinner fit for the Residents’ Club

Researching a recent enquiry has meant that some of the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh Residency records were examined this week. The item photographed for the blog is a finely printed menu for the 19th Residents’ Club Annual Dinner, 1913 (our reference LHB1/117/6 (2)).

After graduating, a medical student was required to serve a practical apprenticeship to finish off the training. To do this the graduate had to get an appointment as a House Officer at a hospital. During the 19th and 20th centuries, House Officers at the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh lived on the premises and were known as the Residents. Some of their illustrious members have included Joseph Lister (pioneer in antiseptics) and Sir Robert Philip (founder of the first Tuberculosis dispensary). A great sense of camaraderie frequently existed amongst the Residents. They developed their own rules and codes of conduct within the Residency Mess and, occasionally, outrageous behaviour was recorded.

Before 1950 the usual period of service was six months, and before 1948 this was unsalaried. On serving their time as Residents, the former students could start their careers as professional doctors, but to keep alive the friendships made in the Mess, they joined the Old Residents’ Club, formed in 1895. The menu features a portrait of Sir George Thomas Beatson, Society President, on the cover and plates of the Royal Infirmary of 1741-1879 as designed by William Adam and the Royal Infirmary as it was on Lauriston Place until the move to Little France in 2003. The menu (which is in French) includes cold Norwegian salmon, chicken braised George the Fifth style, and strawberries and cream.

Cataloguing a career for a career in cataloguing

Our blog is from Simon, a volunteer who has been with LHSA for a day a week for the past few weeks...

I have recently been volunteering at LHSA to gain improved experience of cataloguing processes, and have been lucky enough to be given the responsibility of cataloguing the papers of Nancy MacLeod Nicol, which were gifted to LHSA following Nancy’s death in 2009. Nancy had a long career in nursing and nursing education, predominantly based in and around Edinburgh. She started her career as a student nurse at the Princess Margaret Rose Orthopaedic Hospital, Edinburgh, in 1956, and, following roles in various institutions, Nancy retired in 1994 from her role as Head of the Continuing Learning Department at Lothian College of Nursing and Midwifery (later merged into Edinburgh Napier University). Clearly committed to nursing, Nancy documented the entire span of her long career by retaining documents, photographs and ephemera relating variously to her own experiences in nursing, to colleagues and patients, and to the institutions where she was employed.

After Nancy moved into nursing education, she cultivated an interest in the history of nursing and midwifery education in the Lothian area. During 1992, Nancy embarked on research into the history of the Lothian College of Nursing and Midwifery, the roots of which lay in the many individual hospitals and groups in the Lothian area which once trained their own nurses and midwives. Nancy’s research particularly focused on  the history of nursing and hospital badges, which hospitals often presented to nurses on completion of courses. Nancy’s aim was to locate a badge for each hospital in the Lothian area and to research the history of both the hospital and the badge. The collection includes individual photographs of each badge, along with manuscript material relating to the background of many of the badges.

When the cataloguing is complete, this will provide a useful additional resource to be used alongside LHSA’s own collection of nursing and hospital badges. In 2010, LHSA became involved in a collaborative project with the Royal Infirmary of Edinburgh and Edinburgh College of Art called ‘Unsung Heroes’, which focused on the LHSA collection of nursing badges. Nancy’s research provides fascinating context to the work carried out during the ‘Unsung Heroes’ project, and is likely to include images of badges which are not currently held in the LHSA collection.

By documenting her career progression over a period of almost forty years, Nancy’s legacy is the provision of a rich source of social history relating to the nursing profession during the latter half of the twentieth century. It has been a pleasure to organise these papers into a fascinating, enduring archive of a committed nursing career.

Simon cataloguing a photograph of a nursing badge

Royal Edinburgh Hospital (REH) Casebook Database Update

In May we blogged about the start of this exciting project, which aims to create a database of all patients whose names appear in the REH casebooks. Just 6 weeks into the project and our two volunteers, Arturo and Sandy, who work for 1.5 days a week between them, have already added 449 entries!

Some facts so far…

Youngest patient age on admission: 16

Oldest patient age on admission: 75

Most common diagnoses: mania and melancholia

Some unusual occupations: gold leaf layer; bell hanger; iron moulder; map colourer

Some common occupations: housewife; labourer; soldier; sailor

If you’d like to take part in this project, please take a look at our volunteer pages.

Something to write home about

Pen from Struthers case notes, now Object O551

An interesting item found recently inside a file of Struthers Collection case notes is an old-fashioned pen. The case notes in the file date from 1935 and have not been annotated since then, so it is assumed that the pen dates from around the same period and may have been used by the surgeon Mr Struthers himself. It is approximately 17cm long and is made of wood with a sharp steel tip. The pen has been removed from the case notes and added to our Objects collection.

To write, the user would dip it in a bottle of ink and then the ink would run down a channel in the nib to the tip. Excess ink was put onto blotting paper until the pen was ready to use. The tapered shape of the wooden section is similar to that of a feather quill from which it derives. Writing was much more difficult using this type of pen than fountain and ball point pens and it is no wonder that sometimes the writing is smudged and difficult to read and blobs of ink are common on the pages of the case notes.

Fountain pens were an expensive commodity during the 1930s, so for everyday communal use a simple pen such as this one would be used. Refillable cartridges for fountain pens were not available until the 1950s. Ball point pens, although invented during the 19^th century, weren’t widely used until the 1950s either. The ink formulation hadn’t been perfected – if the ink is too thin it runs out of the pen and if it is too thick it clogs the ball.

Putting on a show: LHSA items displayed

There have been a number of opportunities for LHSA to put material on display recently. This week’s blog gives a brief overview of our work in this area, as well as highlighting several chances for you to see our collection items (some original, some in facsimile) out and about!

Two of our Andrew Kennedy drawings are included in ‘Masterpieces II’, a fascinating exhibition in Edinburgh University Main Library (30 George Square, EH8 9LJ), which showcases iconic items and asks the viewer to examine the qualities that make a masterpiece. Admission is free and the exhibition is open 10am – 5pm Monday to Saturday until 30 June 2012.

Over the last two days we’ve offered tours to NHS Lothian members of staff to introduce them to the range and depth of records we hold in relation to the hospital or specialism they work in. Yesterday we showed 15 dermatologists an accession we transferred from their department earlier in the year, now cleaned and rehoused, ready for future research use. And today it’s been the turn of staff working in the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, who had a particular interest in seeing the material we hold relating to the Hospital's history, and in looking at what items might be used to commemorate the bicentenary of this important institution.

Showing the Royal Edinburgh Hospital staff the extent of the material we hold on their hospital

A selection of items that relate to the Royal Edinburgh Hospital, including early minute books and financial records

We’ve also provided digital images of collection items for exhibitions that other organisations have put together. A visually striking graphic from our UNESCO-awarded HIV/AIDS collections features in the ‘Human Race’ exhibition, which is touring Scotland and is currently in Inverness until 7 July and comes to Edinburgh’s City Art Centre and Royal Commonwealth Pool on 21 July (http://www.humanrace.org.uk/); and images relating to healthcare at the inception of the NHS are on display in ‘Delivering your community health services - from the birth of the NHS to 21st century primary care’, at The Heritage Centre, Manse Street, Saltcoats running until 29 June.

We hope you’ll take the chance to see some of our collection on display, and if there is other LHSA material that you’d like to view please don’t hesitate to get in touch on lhsa@ed.ac.uk.