A 5-Minute Interview with Dr Daisy Mae

What do you want to know about Dr Daisy Mae?

Here are a few of her thoughts about her career as an NHS doctor to her current work as a freelance health writer.

What do you wish someone had told you at the start of your career? …

Helping patients is not all about stethoscopes and prescription writing. It’s about listening, holding hands, empathy and communication. I now realise that so much of health care goes on outside the consulting room.

How can we impart the best health advice and really make a difference? By spending time with patients, standing in their shoes and using the correct language.  And I don’t need a stethoscope or a prescription pad – I can do that with a pen and paper.

The things I like best about my job are …

Having time to read and keep up-to-date with medical news and developments. The challenge of writing great headlines, and creating a compelling story. I like to find a humorous angle – if there is one. I like to think my articles have made a difference in some peoples’ lives.

This is what I sometimes find difficult about my work …

Sitting down for long periods of time, and repetitive stress injury! Balancing my computer screen on a huge pile of old, medical textbooks, has helped keep my head and neck at the correct angle! (I always knew I’d find a good use for those books one day!)

This is what I find makes my work easier …

I’m learning as I go along.  Now I feel that working as a freelance health journalist, I have a good network, including helpful employers, and some excellent testimonials, it’s all come together. The cogwheels of freelancing are my friend. That’s the best way to describe it.

You know me as a health writer but in my previous life, I was …

A busy NHS doctor, at work by 8 am, seeing patients all day in community clinics which frequently ran over time and were absolutely exhausting, and often a 12 to 14 hour day.  The experiences I have had seeing patients – from all walks of life – about anything and everything – have given me a rich experience on which to base my writing.

In brief, my work philosophy is …

I want life to be the best life it can be – for everyone.

If I can make a difference as a health content writer, that is – if someone reads one of my posts and makes a positive health choice, I will never know about that, but I can only hope it’s happening somewhere, somehow, sometime – that’s my goal.

So I endeavour to write – from the heart – earnestly and sincerely to convey health messages in the very best way that I can. That’s it – just me and my computer – and the world as my audience.

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