Any age – Different experiences
Real life stories
Alan Taman
Communications, Press & Information Officer
Birmingham Children’s Hospital NHS Trust
I have two words to describe my career – ‘creatively eclectic!’ Although I now work in the NHS as the Press Officer at Birmingham Children's Hospital, I can look back on a varied career.
I graduated - back in the seventies - as a biochemist but decided that wasn't for me. I went into publishing, training as a subeditor on the BMJ before going freelance in the eighties.
But in the nineties I became a single dad, looking after my two girls (now both in their twenties). I ended up on benefit for a few years, but I wouldn't have had it any other way - my kids were my life then, and I'm glad I took the chance. It showed me what poverty means - and allowed me to bring my two up, an opportunity that is still denied to most men.
As teenagers they really didn't need me home as much so I went back to college to qualify as an Executive PA, ending with me teaching IT at the college full time. While there someone asked if I knew anything about forensic science. Of course, I had written and edited texts in forensic pathology so they said I could "run our new course in Forensic Science!" For the next two years I taught adults and teenagers all the thrills and precision of 'forensics', ranging from investigating fires to burying still-born piglets to mimicking a crime scene. Fascinating stuff!
Writing the forensics course set me to thinking how much I missed writing. I enjoyed seeing people realise what they could do and be as a teacher - but the written work always drew me back to it. So I gritted my teeth and decided to risk a career as a freelance writer, which went fairly well - forensics sells.
But I needed to top my income up so took agency work to do it (that PA qualification had its uses!). That brought me to the Birmingham Children's Hospital, and when the Press Officer post was advertised, I felt someone was nudging me towards it. I got the job!
The work I do now draws on most of the skills I picked up as a freelance, but I also find the insights I gained as a single dad are invaluable when appreciating how the parents of the children we look after must feel.
The last time I felt I really made a difference was when I raised the ethical question of using case histories in the media, of children we have treated within the Trust. I am discussing this with the clinical staff here, and that’s proving both fascinating and rewarding because no one else has done this yet, as far as I can tell, in the UK. I’ve also addressed a meeting of senior managers recently on buying a new software system that would allow the Trust to run its website and intranet in the way it wants to.
I rate the NHS as a fascinating mix of caring and confusion, the latter an inevitable consequence of its sheer size. I also believe firmly that it provides quality care to the vast majority of people it cares for, including me: in March last year, I had a heart attack which nearly killed me. But because of the skills of all of the team who looked after me I am able to be back full time in a job I love. Of course, my girlfriend at the time, then an NHS nurse and now a midwife, also helped enormously. So I responded in the only way I could: I married her!
