Neil Ranasinghe: What’s the Difference Between a Clinician and a Technical Writer?

Neil Ranasinghe is a parent of a survivor of childhood leukemia. He is a longtime patient advocate, working to help children with cancer and their families in the UK and overseas.

“What’s the difference between a clinician and a technical writer?

Before I go any further, I will warn you that this article covers some distressing issues.

When I was a kid, I loved telling jokes, and often they would be along the lines of ‘what’s the difference between a something and a something?’. Those of you who know me are probably aware I am not the most serious person and regularly tell jokes.

What do you want to be when you grow up?

I work for the London Stock Exchange Group (LSEG). I produce documentation to help LSEG’s customers use our software. This is in the world of banking. I am not a clinician, I have no interest in being a clinician, I didn’t grow up thinking I want to be a nurse or doctor, and I can confidently say I will never want to be.

As a patient advocate, and through my voluntary work for the International Society of Paediatric Oncology (SIOP) I have got to know many clinicians, and some have become very close friends. I have also been doing some interviews over the past couple of years for OncoDaily and have had the pleasure of interviewing some paediatric oncologists. Usually, I don’t like to focus on differences between people as there is enough of that being done in society, but what really struck me is how different many clinicians are from people that don’t work in healthcare, and what drives these people.

Over the years there are a few things that I have heard that made me stop and think:

A. How different a bad day in the office is for them compared to a bad day for me.
B. How truly amazing these people are, and they continue to serve.
C. More recently I worry about the mental toll all these incidents take on my friends.

A bad day in the office

I’ll give a few examples. These were said by people I know well, and they weren’t looking for sympathy. They were just telling me what is going on in their lives at that moment.

One doctor said to me that every time a patient dies, a small part of him dies. This is impossible for me to comprehend. I can’t imagine having a job in which I make decisions that impact whether a child lives or dies. As a technical writer, my decisions are more along the lines of prioritising making updates to a technical document or a website or deciding where I make my documents available. It is worlds apart, and the consequences if I make the wrong decision are easily rectified.

I was walking to work one day, having a conversation over WhatsApp with another doctor. She said to me that a patient she was treating was probably going to leave the country. This meant treatment would stop (also known as treatment abandonment) and almost definitely meant that the child would die.

Another tragic story I heard recently was from another friend who is a doctor. She was looking after a child and built a bond between both the mum and the child. The child was transferred to another unit away from the doctor. A different judgment call led to the child’s death.

I could give more examples, but I don’t think it is necessary. The differences are stark. A good day in the office is infinitely better – child finishing treatment, successful operation, responding well to treatment etc. A bad day in the office is unimaginably worse.

More than just a job

The reason for this article isn’t just to say I am different, but to thank all the clinicians out there. All of you that are serving the community, and having to face these dreadful situations. You are all amazing.

To add to that, when it comes to the world of paediatric oncology, I see many clinicians involved in research. Invariably this is in their spare time, publishing papers, joining webinars, attending conferences, all time away from their friends and family. For this special breed, it isn’t just a job. They do so much for children with cancer and their families. Thank you.

PS. I wanted to be a firefighter when I was a kid as I thought it looked very exciting.

Thank you to Julie Waxgiser for reviewing and improving this article. Thank you to Julia Meade for her moving article ‘I still remember’ that spurred me into action.”

Written by Neil Ranasinghe

Read the full article “I still remember” published in Pediatric Blood and Cancer.

More posts featuring Neil Ranasinghe on OncoDaily.