Done.....the upgrade went well, the presentation and the timing worked, and feedback from both reviewers was excellent.  So although a bit stressful it was a really worthwhile occasion.

Useful aspects of the feedback were to confirm that my work to date is good enough to continue as a PhD (great relief!); but also that I need to broaden my perspectives within the literature review even further to include more of the lay literature on depression.  Looking back now on my first draft literature review chapter makes me realise how far my knowledge and thinking has expanded in only a few months, that first attempt was very narrow in perspective and essentially 100% biomedical.  It has made me understand how easy it is to become very narrow in ones perspectives when working within a particular clinical/professional area.

What now?  Well, I think the suggestion of one of the reviewers to have a second literature review chapter dedicated to illness/disease/sickness, with the first literature review chapter looking at depression and treatments, is an excellent idea which will help to encompass much of the folklore/lay literature on illness etc.  So am now off to review that part of the literature and sort out the chapters.

Chapters written, transfer report completed and presentation almost there; the end is in sight, just the hurdle of the Upgrade to get through. It is now the end of many weeks of intense work, every spare waking moment spent searching, reading, writing, tweaking to produce the literature review and methodology chapters.  The past 10 days have been spent preparing the PowerPoint presentation - trying to locate the raw data in order to create accurate pie charts, bar graphs etc.  It is amazing how badly some of the data in papers and reports is referenced, "where did they get that from!!"; so easy to quote percentages but to transpose them into a pictorial image has been a different story.  A useful exercise though as I have found a huge amount of original data - especially on the WHO site, WHO Statistics 2006, the 2001 Mental Health Report contains lots of data on DALYs.  Prescription data and costs by BNF categories can be found on the DH website.

The other key tools I have really learnt how to use more efficiently is Web of Science and Reference Manager - two powerful tools which make my life so much easier; I have learnt to ensure I import every reference WITH its abstract into Reference Manager, and the link to the site goes too; I can then search within Reference Manager to find relevant references and as long as I am logged into UCL with my Athens code I can then link straight back to the article; so much easier than scrabbling around looking for the paper.......the one which is never there when you want it!