Medical Sciences Video Archive

Leading figures in the world of medical and clinical science talk about their lives and careers.

About the Medical Sciences Video Archive

The Medical Sciences Video Archive is a notable collection of video interviews created between 1985 and 2002 and initiated by Professor Max Blythe of Oxford Polytechnic (now Oxford Brookes University).

The 130 interviewees were important figures in clinical medicine and science from the United Kingdom and Australia, including Dr Denis Burkitt, Professor Sir Roy Calne, Sir Richard Doll, Sir James Gowans, Professor Dorothy Hodgkin, Sir Andrew Huxley, Lord Phillips of Ellesmere, Dame Cicely Saunders and Professor Maurice Wilkins.

The collection provides a rich picture of clinical medicine and science from the 1930s to the end of the 20th century. The interviewees talk about their lives, describing their early influences, schooling, university education and medical training; they give a personal view of the role they played in the development of clinical medicine and science in the period.

The collection is particularly rich in: anaesthesia, epidemiology, immunology, medical genetics, pharmacology and respiratory medicine. Other subjects covered include: neurophysiology, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, nutrition, occupational medicine, transplant surgery and x-ray crystallography. There are also a number of interviews relating to policy areas such as health services administration, health education and health promotion, and science funding.

To celebrate the 75th anniversary of the NHS we have created this online exhibition highlighting material from the MSVA and the Welfare collection:

The Medical Sciences Video Archive has been digitised thanks to a grant from Wellcome and is available online via RADAR, the Brookes digital repository.

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