Extra Time

At about 11:30 in the morning yesterday, I suddenly experienced an overwhelming sense of contentment. I was still in my pyjamas, listening to Marian Keyes' Grown Ups on audiobook and emptying the washing machine for the second time. It was windy outside, but sunny, and my pathetic assemblage of potted plants were doing their best to look spring-like. The house was a mess as always, but I had nothing else to do for the day except to try and restore some order on the detritus. I had just to decided to get out my old sewing machine to "whip up" some costumes for World Book Day. I even decided to see World Book Day as a delightful opportunity for my children to express their creativity, rather than a pain-in-the-face chore that I could do without. I tried to assess why I suddenly felt so good. Then it came to me. 

Coronavirus. 

The first case on the island of Ireland had been announced a couple of days ago, and for some reason an overwhelming sense of relief had washed over me. I have been preparing for the next WiMIN conference for months, and it is happening in Belfast in three weeks' time. Or at least that's the plan. It might have to be cancelled, if there is a ban on mass gatherings, or if the speakers can't travel, or if we are all holed up in our houses eating tinned tuna and rubbing the last few mls of hand sanitiser onto our chests. And the realisation that all the organising in the world couldn't have prepared me for this was actually a sweet relief. 

It reminded me that I do all this WiMINing to avoid the ever-present sense of impending doom that accompanies stage 4 cancer. But now there is a real crisis! If you suffer from chronic anxiety there is nothing better than an I Told You So moment, an event that proves how right you are to be interminably terrified. And so the rough edges were smoothed, the clenched jaw relaxed, the shoulders lowered themselves from the ears. 

It was helped by the fact that yesterday was February 29th, that little bonus ephemeral almost non-existent day, a Narnia day, an International Date Line day, a coming-up-smiling-on-Tuesday day. A little oasis of calm in the desert of all-out world-wide apocalyptic carnage. 

It was lovely. 

Tuned Out

I received a set of over-the-ear headphones as a Christmas present. I had asked for them. I wanted to be able to clean the toilet and listen to podcasts without my little in-ear jobs falling into the Ajaxed water. I didn't realise that big puffy headphones are not made with the spectacle-wearer in mind, and the arms of my glasses get squished into my mastoid bones. My head also gets ferociously hot under there, causing me to have to remove at least one of the many (many) layers of clothes that I tend to wear.

But the sound is sublime. Being enveloped by voice, or music, or both. Being intimately connected with the person on the other end of the bluetooth magic. 
And noise cancelling. 
What parent doesn't need this? 
I am in the room with my children and I am the absolute opposite of present. I am away, immersed in Nick's grief, or Jen's sports updates, or Cillian's eclectic New Year's Day mélange of Scottish folk music and Limerick rap. The children obviously require aural attention now and then, but generally all they need is food and the enforcement of safety regulations, so I am not really neglecting them that much. Their lips move but I can't hear what they're saying (and they wouldn't even get the Pink Floyd reference anyway). 

Ajaxing the toilet is so much more fulfilling when you're listening to Eton Rifles. 

And The Loser Is....

"Multi-award winning." 

That has quite a ring to it, doesn't it? Who wouldn't want that tacked on to their name? 

Kudos, recognition, respect. Accolades and honours. We all love that kind of thing. 

I was very pleased with myself when I was nominated for GP of the Year this year in the GPBuddy Awards. My nominator took the time and effort to write about me and the various little crazinesses that I do, and put my name forward for consideration. I am very grateful to him for that (thanks Mike!) and for me that is the true spirit of such an award - having a colleague or friend go out of their way to raise you up and acknowledge your effort or commitment to whatever "cause" floats your boat. 

I assumed that that is how all awards work. I have nominated other people for various accolades, though so far none of them has been short-listed. Perhaps I need to up my gushing game, perhaps I am understating their greatness, but I will persist, and I hope that one day I will be the proud nominator of a Winner. 

I assumed that a person with good intentions would nominate another person with good credentials, and the good judges would evaluate each nominee's merits and acknowledge that while everyone is great, one person is more great than the others. 

And that seemed to be the case with the GPBuddy Awards. Good individuals and good teams got the recognition they deserved, and apparently the atmosphere on the evening was collegiate and warm (I wasn't there, being tucked up in bed across the country preparing for another Big Day in my life at dotMD).

I had got the bug though, and the FOMO, and I wanted to continue the buzz. So I looked into the Irish Healthcare Awards, which seemed to be the Oscars of medical awards in Ireland, and I figured I would throw WiMIN's hat into the ring. The hat-throwing, however, would cost the organisation nearly €300. Hmmm, I thought, that seems a bit steep. But what do I know? It is the Oscars, after all. 

Lo and behold, #SundayWiMIN was shortlisted in the Best Use of Social Media category. Phew, I thought, it would have been a shame if that money had been wasted, when it could have been used to support our mentoring programme, or to subsidise a student to attend our conference, or as a bursary to support research into issues relevant to gender inequity in Ireland. 

So we received nice fancy social media gifs to announce our success at making it onto the shortlist, and I looked up the date of the awards night to make sure I could be there to (hopefully) lift the trophy. It was on a Wednesday night, in Dublin. I guess it is only culchies who are concerned about going out late on a school night.

It was in a once-fancy hotel, in a still-fancy part of town. That's how it goes. At least it wasn't in the very-fancy hotel down the road, because that would be too expensive. 

I looked hard for the part of the website which stated how many free or subsidised tickets would be allocated to the finalists, in order that they could attend to receive their potential prize. 

Oh. 

That would be None. 

I found the section on How to Book a Table. My hurried lunchtime cheese sandwich paused at my lips as I read the price of the tickets, and then read the words "ex-vat" next to them. Per table? Per county? Perhaps they meant you were buying the seat, plus the cutlery and crockery, and all the pots that were used to make the food, and maybe a few shares in the vineyard as well? €280 is quite a bit more than I would usually spend on a three-course hotel meal. 

But this is Dublin, and doctors. They are all hanging around in their Louboutins and Lexuses. What do us culchies know? And it would be uncouth to mention money, right?

It turns out that the event is sponsored, too. Five hundred people at nearly €300 a head plus, what, five to ten grand per sponsor? 

Fair play to them. That is a very sound business plan. Each year there is a chosen charity partner, and I assume the donation to them is significant. 

I have no idea how many attendees bought their own tickets. Most of the finalists were members of large organisations, many within the HSE but some private or charitable. The opportunity for team-building and staff engagement was very evident, and it was clear that many people were getting a lot of enjoyment out of the evening. It is always lovely to dress up and spend time outside of the workplace with your colleagues, and it certainly adds to the team spirit once you are back at the coalface. 

It just seems a shame that the experience has to cost so much, making it more or less impossible for people in smaller organisations, or individuals, to attend or to even consider nominating a colleague. A GP is very unlikely to fork out €300 to nominate their buddy up the road, and their buddy might not be too pleased with having to find a locum so they can hoof up the country mid-week for an overpriced meal in a three star hotel. 

And yes of course #SundayWiMIN didn't win, and of course I'm just bitter, and of course if we had won I would have been singing the praises of the whole enterprise. But a quick scoot around the internet revealed not a single other "industry award" that required an entry fee of a similar amount, the majority having no charge at all to enter. 

I wonder if there were any "nominees" at the Irish Healthcare Awards who weren't "shortlisted". I suspect not. I have to question the integrity of an event which is supposed to highlight the wonderful work done by healthcare workers around the country, which is composed entirely of people, groups and projects who have a spare 280 quid to throw at the organisers. I could not find a single other Healthcare award in Ireland or the UK where such an entrance fee was charged. 

I had a lovely night meeting other WiMIN and chatting with fellow GPs, but I won't be going back unless I am sure that it is no longer a cynical money-making racket. 

(Or until I can find anybody who might collect a brown envelope....)