Health freak? Meet Ann McPherson

Debbie Cohen talks to the part time general practitioner and author of the notorious Diary of a ... Health Freak series of young persons' books

Ann McPherson has a busy day ahead of her. In between trying to secure funding for a new website and a meeting at the Royal College of Physicians, where she is a fellow, she is being interviewed by the BBC about the latest edition of her book in the Teenage Health Freak series. Add to this her CBE for services to teenage and women's health, she has had a remarkably successful career for someone who has been an “only” part time general practitioner for most of her medical career. A success that can possibly be attributed to her ability to see and then take positive actions where others may see only problems.

Ann has not always taken the easy route either by choice or coincidence. She went to a school in north London that had not produced a medical student in over 15 years and was “rejected everywhere” until after her A level results came out, when St George's accepted her. Then, although general practice was “deeply unfashionable” and frowned upon by her tutors, she decided she was going to be a general practitioner. By this time she had a baby and managed to train part time when there were few measures in place to cater for working women with children.

Her baby was born immediately after registration and, during an interview for a job in paediatrics, she realised that she didn't want to work full time. “The post meant that I would be on call every other night and working weekends. I thought this would be impossible to do and bring up a baby properly,” she says.

But maternity leave was very short and finding a hospital with crèche facilities proved to be difficult. Eventually, she found two doctors at Everline Children's' Hospital, who supported women with children in their training. Then, after the birth of her second child and a move to the Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Hackney, London, Ann had to explain to the governing body why she wanted to bring her baby to work to breast feed.

“I was thought to be a bad mother because I wanted to do that,” she says.

The one area of her life she is most enthusiastic about is her family, and she mentions her children at every given opportunity. “I'm really glad I was around for my kids, and I feel it's important that I didn't only work. One of the nicest things my daughters say is that they remember me being there at teatime.”

But she is quick to acknowledge the role her husband took in her life: “I also had a partner who was very supportive.”

After she finished her training, Ann moved to Oxford, where she has been a part time general practitioner for over 20 years. Working part time suited her as it gave her the opportunity to both spend time with her children and pursue other interests.

When her children were growing up, she noticed that there was very little children's literature about the human body. “There was stuff about how babies were born, but there was nothing about other things young children were interested in—like, where your food goes,” she says.

This gave her the impetus to start writing and illustrating booklets containing educational information about the human body. Despite her observations and innovative ideas, publishing companies rejected her work on the grounds that “children weren't interested in it.”

When a publisher finally accepted her work, they used a well known personality to front the series instead. “This made me all the more determined to carry on. It taught me to keep battling away for things you firmly believe in,” Ann says.

Seeing adversity as a challenge and coupling it with her own experiences as a doctor and mother, she set about writing a set of leaflets about different health topics for children together with a paediatrician, Aidan MacFarlane.

“At work, I was repeating the same information about sore throats, chicken pox, head lice, worms, etc. There was nothing for children on these topics, so I started to write leaflets,” she explains.

The series of leaflets were later made into a cartoon illustrated book called Mum I Feel Funny, which won an information award from the Times Educational Supplement. “This reaffirmed my faith that you keep on doing things you believe in,” she adds.

By working part time and combining her medical career with writing, Ann has avoided becoming “burned out” and improved her working knowledge of adolescence.

Ann and Dr MacFarlane went into schools to find out what teenagers were worried about and the jokes they used before tackling health education for teenagers. Seven hundred questionnaires later came the first in the hugely successful series of Teenage Health Freak diaries, featuring the hypochondriacal, 14 year old, Pete Payne. The books cover a wide range of physical, social, and emotional topics and are re-edited regularly to keep them up to date. “We have to keep abreast of changes such as text messaging and the rise in chlamydia. Things change both in the world and in health,” she says.

The first book, The Diary of a Teenage Health Freak, caught the imagination of the public, topping the W H Smith's teenage book charts and was later made into a television series for Channel 4 and a play in Rio de Janeiro.

After the success of the books and also, noting the popularity of the internet with teenagers, Ann set up the website www.teenagehealthfreak.org with Dr MacFarlane, which is updated daily.

When Ann was diagnosed with she breast cancer, she found it helpful to share her experiences with other people who had gone through the same thing. She joined up with Andrew Herzheimer to devise Dipex, a web based database of individual patients' experiences, which was launched last year. The site, www.dipex.org, couples experience with good evidence based information

“There's been a lot about making the NHS very patient focused or getting patients experiences into the NHS,” she says. “Dipex will document all the good, bad, and indifferent experiences. So when someone comes to the site, they can find someone who has had a similar experience to them.”

Although the site is targeted at patients and their carers, Ann believes it will be a useful resource for training medical students and doctors by making them more aware of a patient's experience. She also hopes that researchers will use it to gain information about what matters most to patients.

She admits that some people thought she was mad when she came up with the idea. “You should always stick with what you really believe in even though it may not always make you popular,” she says. “People shouldn't be afraid to say what they think. If you really believe in something you should go for it.”