I would like to thank my academic supervisors Professor Jan Oyebode and Dr Andrea Capstick, for challenging me when I needed challenging, and supporting me when I needed supporting. Their input and patience has been invaluable in helping me to learn how to do research, and to navigate some of the of the more emotionally challenging aspects of this project. Their creativity and wisdom are inspirational.
I would also like to thank the countless experts who have offered guidance, feedback and suggestions along the way – Dr Anita Sargeant, Professor Neil Small, Dr Ros Taylor, Dr Sarah Russell, Dr Alan Blighe, Dr Erica Borgstrom, Dr Kath Sleeman, Professor Allen Kellehear, Professor Arthur Frank and many others. Thank you to my ‘Shut Up and Write’ group – Sarah, Helen, Alison, Lindsey and Jenny, for motivation and momentum.
I would not have been able to complete this without some amazing people for whose help I am immeasurably grateful: my daughters, Martha and Eve, for tolerance and patience, and for putting up with me being a part-time mum for such a very long time! Andy, for endless deep conversations and rock steady support in the final stretch; to my best friend Alice, for never-ending patience, encouragement and cake; to my parents for believing it would (one day) come to an end, and to Mike for reminding me that things can change. I am grateful for the wisdom of older people who have enriched my world – to my grandparents, to the participants in the study, to the many patients I have met during my nursing career who showed me how to live until we die, to my Uncle Stanley Simmons without whose example I never would have followed this path.
I could not have done any of this without you. Thank you all.
Laura
Contributor: Laura Green
Source: Green L (2018) Here, there is nobody; an ethnography of older people’s end of life care in hospital, PhD, University of Bradford
Time for some acknowledgement 