What's Up Doc?

Had the initial briefing on writing material for the pharmaceutical reports. Which meant getting a chance to skim through the source documents, all chock full of marvellous science-speak.

The material was presented in great big chunks of text that went on and on and on, one comma after another, piling on the information with no end in sight, as well as adding lots of acronyms, which made we wonder WTF was going on there, and then putting additional data in brackets (to make the sentences even longer), so that before I got close to the end, I lost track of where I was.

What it has to be turned into is briefing material for MPs. Bullet points. Key facts. Sound bites on paper. On the symptom and the potential cure.

Instead of the science part, they want to know how many of their constituents are affected. They also want the panic points as well, to smack the opposition over the head with.

The strange thing is, since we’ve been filming the corporate/ pharmaceutical work, I’ve seen more doctors than I have in my lifetime. Growing up in the West Country, including spending years living on a farm, we never went to a doctor unless a limb had been torn off or we’d coughed up a vital organ.

So almost drowning in a grain silo, having a woodpile collapse onto me, nearly getting trampled by stampeding meat and muscle that had broken out of their grazing pasture, or spending a morning getting sprayed with cow shit, were just par for the course. On days when I was I feeling slightly dodgy I was still packed off to school. Although one time it did result in me hurling up all over my desk in second period Latin, so maybe that’s a bad example.

One of the few times I have seen a doctor in the last twenty years it resulted in the nurse (who not only looked, but acted like Rosa Klebb’s ugly sister) taking blood samples from my arm in such a clumsy way that the resulting bruise ran from my wrist halfway up my bicep. And then the local GP at the surgery went to prison for showing an unhealthy interest in some of his younger patients. So I’ve tended to steer clear of medical practices.

Even now, I’ve either chipped a bone near my elbow or trapped a nerve, because it hurts like a sonofabitch when I try to straighten my arm. If I have to see someone, I’ll wait until after the work is finished. Pretty much the attitude we used to have, knowing that it would sort itself out eventually.