Friends 0f the Manx Diabetes Centre

Dr Harrison was appointed Consultant Physician with special interest in cardiovascular disease to Nobles Hospital in 1996. He took up that position in April of that year having previously been consultant in the Royal Air Force where he had spent seventeen years in training and consultancy posts.

During that period he had training and had working periods in the National Health Service, one of which was as a senior registrar in the cardiology department at the John Radcliffe Hospital Oxford

When Dr Harrison came to the Isle of Man , it was with a remit to develop cardiac services, as well as being a general physician covering acute medical emergencies, these emergencies arise every day.

He told The Diabetic that the department of cardiovascular medicine at Nobles was in a fledgling state, with the cardio respiratory department having just two technicians and no real focus for cardiac patients to be seen. In addition to seeing all of the patients and outpatients with heart disease he was also involved with patients who were diabetic, as patients with diabetes were seen by a variety of consultants, none of whom had a special interest in diabetes.

In particular Dr Murray had seen a great number of patients as had Dr Bourdillion his predecessor, and in 1997 Dr Harrison organised a move so that the diabetes service took a more multidisciplinary approach using a special clinic in nobles hospital in Douglas . This with the hospital practitioner Dr Alison Blackman being the bedrock of the service, which had started in 1991, Dr Murray and himself did a weekly clinic, they did this on Fridays and the patients were able to see the dieticians and the chiropodist all in the same clinic. This clinic Dr Harrison pointed out worked reasonably well.

Dr Harrison then said that in 1999 they managed to identify a building which became the first Manx Diabetes Centre, and the building was finished in 2000.

It had become increasingly apparent that a diabetes Consultant was required to run what was an increasingly important service, and Dr Khan was then appointed and has taken over the reins.

From the time of his appointment Dr Murray and himself had relinquished their interest in Diabetes which allowed them to concentrate on other specialties.

In terms of cardiac services the numbers of patients being seen for cardiac problems progressively increased, and this required an increase in the number of cardiac technicians to allow them to deal with the increasing number of tests required, and over the last five years, he told The Diabetic, “the cardio respiratory department has increased by three fold and we can now provide the highly sophisticated and all encompassing investigation set up for patients with heart decease”.

In addition, in 2000 a one stop chest pain clinic had been inaugurated run by Dr Harrison, where they aimed to see patients with new onset chest pains within one to two weeks of seeing their General Practitioners and to date that has been a very successful clinic. This clinic has now expanded into an additional clinic on a Monday afternoon being serviced by the staff grade in medicine

In terms of Diabetes and heart disease, a lot of diabetics come through the chest pain clinics for obvious reasons, because diabetics are at a significantly increased risk of developing artery disease as part of their condition, in particular this is the case of patients with type 2 diabetes.