Abstract
The combination of good communication skills and a broad medical knowledge places GPs in a prime position to pursue medical media work. This may include writing for consumer magazines or newspapers, or appearing on radio and television. Media medics have a wide-ranging background, but usually require significant medical experience.
Dr Mark Porter, MBE is a GP and a well-recognized personality in medical media.
In 1986, I qualified from Westminster Hospital Medical School. I got in through clearing the closest squeak of my career. Struggling to find a speciality I liked, I nearly settled on anaesthetics before trying a year in general practice.
At the end of my registrar year, I saw an advert in GP for a position to join the editorial team commissioning clinical features. Having been there for just 6 months, the phone rang: it was the BBC looking for doctors to work on a new morning show ‘Good Morning’. I got the job and so started my career in the lay media.
After joining the BBC, I ended up presenting Watchdog Healthcheck (BBC1) and joined the Jimmy Young Programme (Radio 2). I also joined the Sunday Mirror and the Radio Times. These days, I present Inside Health for Radio 4, am doctor to the One Show (along with Sarah Jarvis) and am medical columnist for The Times. Less TV and more print and radio are the best course to follow as age takes its toll!
I love the mix and variety. Mondays and Fridays, I am a GP in South Gloucestershire, in a semi-rural practice with 6000 patients. Tuesdays and Wednesdays, I am at Radio 4, whereas Thursdays, I write my Times column.
The surgery keeps me grounded in the real world of the National Health Service, so I know what is relevant. The media work means I meet key opinion leaders in their fields. I am forever learning something new, so I can feedback this knowledge rapidly to my colleagues long before it percolates down to general practice.
Keeping all the balls in the air can be difficult, especially if things do not go smoothly. Double-checking details for accuracy is time-consuming as well.
You can never please everyone all the time. Medicine is far from black and white, so I have learned to dispense facts and contrasting opinions so that audiences can draw their own conclusions. I do not preach- not very often anyway!
In my mother's eyes, it would be the job at The Times and Radio 4 and the MBE for services to medicine. For me, it is finding a group of GPs who are happy to have me in their midst and who support everything I do.
On a personal note, it has to be my family. I have been married to my school sweetheart for 25 years and we have two beautiful daughters and a smelly dog.
Get a good base in clinical medicine: at least 5 years with as many postgraduate qualifications as you can muster. Then, and only then, try and make your way in the media. New media, like blogs and forums, make gaining a foothold much easier. You need to have something interesting and sensible to say, attributes that often come only with experience.
To master Twitter and find someone to take over my work when I am past my sell by date. Oh, and win the Lottery so that I can have a very badly behaved exciting retirement. But that is some way off hopefully.