THE DIARY OF A TRAVELLER - a view back from the dark side

By Graham Dalrymple
Contact the author by e-mail at christopher.johnstone@ntlworld.com

I left the land of my fathers and all they believed in after seventeen long years. All those years I was full of youthful enthusiasm, idealistic, full of hope, under no illusion that I could change things for the better by hard work on its own. Good would ultimately triumph over evil.

I was not alone, my people toiled hard beside me day in day out often without a break for days or weeks at a time. But this was a brutal regime, we were down trodden, abused, taken for granted for little or no reward. Work directives were imposed on those who gave of their labour for no reason other than the whim of our masters had changed, we became confused, disheartened and our souls destroyed.

Some chose to stay and fight from within and I raise my glass to them. I could take no more, I had fought as hard as I could within the confines of the frameworks to which we were lashed. I had to get out I planned my escape in detail over some years. I could afford no mistakes, no errors as there would be little chance of return once I had gone.

I had met with these alien, foreign people before, regularly they visited us in our dwelling places. I warmed to them, found them friendly and exciting and I listened to the tales of their lives with wonder. I had decided I must join them and be at one with their ways.

But they are not widely and uniformly welcomed, there are those who distrust them, talk down to them treat them as a lower class; a lesser people. It was said to me they must not be trusted and I should not enter into intercourse with them. I have read that they are like lizards by those who call our own people pigs, but I can subscribe to neither description as being true.

When the definitive opportunity arose and the next boat sailed - I knew I must be on it. Having waved my sad farewells to those closest to me who knew my reasons for going. I would always be one of them and I know that that will never change. I left to start a new life with new hope, new prospects in a land that seemed so far away and yet was in reality so close.

And what tribes I have found. These peoples know more detail about my erstwhile areas of expertise than I had given them credit for previously, they are both well read and well educated. They have a knowledge of science and particularly its writings of which I understood little much of it seemingly written in a very strange language.

They work hard, very hard long hours with many stresses on them but it is a different stress and different pressures from that which I had become accustomed to. They also realise the importance of good family life and rewards appropriate to the work done. There is no sign of child sacrifice and devil worship which I have searched hard for but been unable to find. They are also an enlightened people who have a great work ethic but are champions of energetic socialising both within themselves but also all those they meet.

I feel the summer has been longer, the weather warmer and the days sunnier since becoming one of them. This tribe I have joined have a hierarchy also, not shackled by formality but open to all and transversed by the use of first names with no resort to title aires or graces. They have a code of acceptable conduct which I had heard of previously but little understood. All here stand in awe of the code which must be adhered to at all cost to uphold the very moral fabric of these people and a more effective book of rules I have not met. Most telling of all is their innovative use of vocabulary, which regularly uses the phrase “Thank you”. Not something I had heard from those around me for the previous seventeen years as it was just not the done thing, not deserving and something to be frowned on.

Having read this far you may be wondering where did I travel from? Indeed I left you my people in the NHS to join the Pharmaceutical industry – The Dark Side. I will always be one of you and may visit from time to time with information I feel important to you, but I will never return to stay. I look back from the bows of my ship of discovery glinting in a sea of opportunity and what I see is industrious hard work from you all on uncertain ground under a dark clouded sky and admire you for it.

The view from the Dark Side is rosy - they are honourable and hard working. There is no trickery or deviousness – it is just not tolerated.

As with all areas where there are differences between groups it is better to find common ground to work on rather than exploit differences and create voids. There are no lizards or pigs in this world only a common goal to deliver the best healthcare possible for those who need all of us the most – the patients. The pharmaceutical industry and the healthcare professional are merely at different points in the delivery of that same process.

The views represented above are my personal experiences and not necessarily the views of the company I now work for..

hoolet is the magazine of RCGP Scotland. It is supported intellectually, financially and emotionally by RCGP Scotland.

This issue maintained by Robert Hallam.