| I've been doing some research into what people in Britain think of doctors, |
| the ones who work in general practice - the first call for medical care - |
| and comparing this with the situation in a couple of other countries. |
| I want to talk about the rationale behind what I decided to do. |
| Now I had to set up my programme of research in three different countries |
| so I approached postgraduates in my field in overseas departments, |
| contacting them by email, to organize things for me at their end. |
| I thought I would have trouble recruiting help |
| but in fact everyone was very willing and sometimes their tutors got involved too. |
| I had to give my helpers clear instructions about what kind of sample population I wanted them to use. |
| I decided that people under 18 should be excluded |
| because most of them are students or looking for their first job, |
| and also I decided at this stage, just to focus on men who were in employment, |
| and set up something for people who didn't have jobs |
| and for employed women later on as a separate investigation. |
| I specifically wanted to do a questionnaire, |
| and interviews with a focus group. |
| With the questionnaire, rather than limiting it to one specific point, |
| I wanted to include as much variety as possible. |
| I know questionnaires are a very controlled way to do things |
| but I thought I could do taped interviews later on to counteract the effects of this. |
| And the focus group may also prove useful in future, |
| by targeting subjects I can easily return to, |
| as the participants tend to be more involved. |
| So I'm just collating the results now. |
| At the moment, it looks as if, in the UK, |
| despite the fact that newspapers continually report that people are unhappy with medical care, |
| in fact, it is mainly the third level of care, |
| which takes place in hospitals, that they are worried about. |
| Government reforms have been proposed at all levels |
| and although their success is not guaranteed, |
| long-term hospital care is in fact probably less of an issue |
| than the media would have us believe. |
| However, I've still got quite a bit of data to look at. |
| Certainly I will need to do more far-reaching research than I had anticipated |
| in order to establish if people want extra medical staff invested in the community, |
| or if they want care to revert to fewer, but larger, key medical units. |
| The solution may well be something that can be easily implemented |
| by those responsible in local government, |
| with central government support, of course. |
| This first stage has proved very valuable though. |
| I was surprised by how willing most of the subjects were to get involved in the project - |
| I had expected some unwillingness to answer questions honestly. |
| But I was taken aback and rather concerned that something I thought I'd set up very well... |
| didn't necessarily seem that way to everyone in my own department. |
| I thought you might also be interested in some of the problems I encountered in collecting my data. |
| There were odd cases that threw me - |
| one of the subjects who I had approached while he was out shopping in town, |
| decided to pull out when it came to the second round. |
| It was a shame as it was someone who I would like to have interviewed more closely. |
| And one of the first-year students I interviewed |
| wanted reassurance that no names would be traceable from the answers. |
| I was so surprised, |
| because they think nothing of telling you about themselves and their opinions in seminar groups! |
| Then, one of the people that I work with got a bit funny. |
| The questions were quite personal |
| and one minute he said he'd do it, |
| then the next day he wouldn't, |
| and in the end he did do it. |
| It's hard not to get angry in that situation |
| but I tried to keep focused on the overall picture in order to stay calm. |
| The most bizarre case was a telephone interview I did with a teacher at a university in France. |
| He answered all my questions in great detail - |
| but then when I asked how much access he had to dangerous substances, |
| he wouldn't tell me exactly what his work involved. |