Interview with Dr Ian Fletcher.

London : Wellcome Trust, 2011.

1 encoded audio file (134.22 min.) + 1 PDF transcript

02:14:22

Wellcome Trust, 2011

Some restrictions.

Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No derivatives 3.0 Unported

In English.

Interview took place on 10 August 2011

This recording is the first from a Wellcome Trust funded project by Swansea University.

Dr Ian Fletcher, retired Senior Medical Officer in the Artificial Limb-Fitting Centre in Queen Mary’s Hospital, Roehampton, London.

Interview: Dr Ian Fletcher in conversation with Dr Ruth Blue discusses his career at Queen Mary's Hospital, Roehampton where he worked as an orthopaedic surgeon until he sustained an injury to his eye. He then went on to work with patient rehabilitation; at Roehampton, there was a saying, ' When the operation is over, the treatment starts'. Fletcher encountered waves of different limb injuries which required prosthetics - veterans from the war, polio-affected children and then in 1961-62 he started to see babies with a new kind of limb deficency - children whose mothers had taken the drug thalidomide during pregnancy. Fletcher talks about the initial reaction to the large numbers of thalidomide-affected children and the challenges this suddenly presented to devise prosthetic limbs for them - something which quickly became political. He talks about Chailey Heritage in Sussex. There is plenty of detail about the many small ways that occupational therapists made independent living feasible for the children that passed through their doors. Reflecting on his long career, Fletcher comments that he was glad to make a difference for so many children. Time start: 00:00:00:00 Time end: 02:14:22:00 Length: 02:14:22:00