Peverley: I hope the GMC isn’t reading this

Former Pulse columnist Dr Phil Peverley returns to reflect on his time through the decades for our Pulse in Print series

I was honoured to be asked to write a valedictory column in the last print issue of that august medical publication, Pulse. But what to write about? It’s seven years since I saw a patient, so I’m hardly au courant with developments in the profession. So I decided to write about me, and the effect of Pulse on my personal and professional life. 

I am aware of the inexorable conveyor belt of time, and that about a third of my previous readership will have moved on to the (hopefully) sunlit uplands of retirement, and that another third will never have seen one of my articles (I suspect that more people saw them than actually read them) so a brief précis is in order. 

Twenty years ago I was writing in a desultory manner for Doctor magazine, and the editor Mr Cresswell sent me a message: ‘Hi Phil. I’ve just been offered the editor job at Pulse. I’d like to take you with me. It’ll be twice the money.’ The final sentence caught my attention, and to paraphrase John F Kennedy, I thought, ‘Ask not what you can do for Pulse. Ask what it can do for you’. 

Thus began a 15-year association and about 500 columns, all written in exactly the same way; with about two hours to go until the deadline, I would approach a blank computer screen with a teeming tumbler of whisky, thinking, ‘What’s it going to be about THIS time?’ But something always arrived. 

And we won awards! Of course, awards are just meaningless baubles for the self-congratulatory. Unless you’re actually up for one, in which case they are well-deserved accolades from respected peers. I should point out now that my successor Dr Tony Copperfield is the guy who should have won the awards. But luckily for me, he does not wish to give his real name away for fear of what happened to me later. So he chose not to be eligible. 

I was in Moss Bros once hiring a ‘tux’ for one of these ceremonies, and the lady behind the counter asked, ‘Weren’t you here last year? Some kind of awards ceremony? Are you going to be making a habit of this? Maybe you should buy it, it’s only twice the price!’ So I did, and a sound financial decision it was too. I’m not saying the arse is out of it by now, but we got shortlisted for Columnist Of The Year 12 times and won it five times. 

Awards ceremonies are great. You get to see a lot of people you have heard of, there’s free booze, they make a fuss of you, then they call your name out, you weave your way to the stage, and Claudia Winkleman gives you a kiss. One year it was Ian Hislop and he didn’t give me a kiss, but I can live with that. 

But then there’s the dark side. Pulse is an influential publication, and all the national newspapers monitor it. This is where they get a lot of their lead medical stories. The corollary of this is that they would read my column as well, so occasionally I would be exposed in the national press for writing something that they regarded as controversial. The time that springs to mind is when I had written that I had considered putting up a picture of Professor Stephen Hawking in my consulting room with the caption ‘This bloke is not on the sick’. Well, he wasn’t. 

This resulted an a Sky News reporting team setting up outside my surgery, doorstepping patients, asking, ‘Is this Dr Peverley some sort of unfeeling bastard or what?’ until our practice manager shooed them away like a bunch of seagulls. 

I was reported to the GMC three times, each time by people who had read about me in the national press, not patients. This is what happens when you’re reported to the GMC: they open a file and write to you, asking for character references from your employers. 

At the time that was me (I gave myself an excellent reference for my probity and honesty), Hartlepool United FC (I imagine they wrote that he turns up every home game and eats more than his fair share of prawn sandwiches in the director’s box, but we like him) and Pulse, and I bow to all the editors I’ve worked for, who were first out of the blocks to robustly defend my right to free speech. And every time the GMC agreed with them. No further action. 

So, salut Pulse and all who sail in her. It’s not the end, the online presence will continue, and may it be ever so. 

Dr Phil Peverley was a GP in Sunderland and a Pulse columnist for 15 years