I have launched a survey where you can express an interest in taking part in an interview with me as part of my PhD project.
To share this information widely on social media, I made an image detailing the most important points:
The image contains a fair amount of text, and the image description was too long for image description boxes on social media e.g. Twitter. I have included the image description in full below:
This is an image consisting mainly of text. On the left hand side is a light blue textbox, which takes up approximately a third of the space. The rest of the image has a white background.
From left to right, the text reads:
My name is Katharine and I am doing a PhD because I want to understand how it feels to live with a medical condition which is not well understood.
This project was inspired by my own experiences of illness as well as by my work with charities and patient groups. I saw that many people with complex, poorly-understood medical conditions were suffering not only from the severity of their physical symptoms but also from the effects of stigma, shame and social exclusion.
I designed my PhD project because I want to help to change this.
There is a picture of Katharine to the right of this last line of text. Katharine – a white woman in her twenties – is smiling at the camera, she has dark hair which is swept slightly in front of her face. Just visible is her grey scarf and red coat.
The text continues on the right-hand side of the image. From the top, it reads:
Do you have experience of illness that is complex and that you feel medicine doesn’t fully understand?
Have you been made to feel stigmatised, or even ashamed, as a result of your illness?
Would you be happy to share your experiences with me?
I am conducting PhD research into women’s experiences of complex, poorly-understood medical conditions. As part of this research, I would like to interview women who live with these conditions so that I can hear about their experiences in their own words.
You can express an interest in taking part in an interview by completing this survey: https://durham.onlinesurveys.ac.uk/living-with-complex-poorly-understood-medical-conditions
For more information, please visit https://katharinecheston.com or email katharine.a.cheston@durham.ac.uk.
This project is funded by Wellcome, and it has received ethical approval from the Department of Anthropology Ethics Committee, Durham University.
To the right of this last line of text are two logos. The first is for Wellcome: this is a white capital W on a black square background, with small white text spelling out ‘Wellcome’ beneath it. The second is for Durham University: this has the Durham University crest to the left-hand side, with Durham University in black type.
End of image description.
Katharine Cheston 