Hugh Gibbons' references and extra information
PPhunnybone for January 2015
for pharmaceutical physicians, colleagues and friends

I used to endure photosensitivity. But last October’s pilgrimage to the Holy Land cured me.

Before, I was sensitive to people taking photos. Well, I’m a throwback to a time when cameras were uncommon, and we were conscious of the cost of rolls of film and processing. So when someone was clearly taking a snap, like everyone else I’d respect their space and wait patiently till they were finished.

Nowadays you find a camera built into everything – not just in tablets and phones but pairs of socks and packs of sausages and, who knows, recycled toilet rolls. And a thousand pics cost no more than one - hence endemic OCD: Obsessive Camera Disorder, aka Chronic Photorrhoea. Missed one? Click again. So I now feel no conscience about boldly going where no man would have stepped before.

NB There’s another other new phenomenon by way of worshipping the great god Pixel. People use both hands to offer up their i-pads or other tablets (sort of Moses going back up).

Incidentally, us pilgrims were 36 people of average age well over 60, with different walking speeds, attention spans and bucket lists. But we were a team, and one offering practical lessons for business as well as medicine. Our well-versed shepherd Tom has being a parish priest as his day job. He assigned roles to different people each day – a bit like ace-leader Ernest Shackleton training his crew to be multi-skilled en route to the Antarctic. (It’s an idea that many a manager might use to enthuse staff bored with staring at screens.)

Our roles don’t get mentioned in books on ideal business team make-up. But medical departments as well as coach parties could do with being aware of them. And who knows but that you or a colleague are their counterpart already.

Entry-fee Holders, Singers and Readers had brief duties. But from start to finish each day, Back Markers were tasked with seeing everyone kept in touch - in a land flowing not just with honey but churches, gift shops, toilets and, hey, those cable cars at Masada and Jericho.

Counters had to make sure we all physically there before the group moved on. Actually counting and recounting 36 people quickly in a coach party is on a par with Fermat’s Last Theorem, and we never really cracked it. (What psychological personal traits would best suit? Discuss as an exercise.) Our retired physician was best – experience with clamps and swabs helped, I guess. Not so good was the former secondary school teacher with a doctorate in mathematics. Fatally, he knew the answer he was looking for: 36. So he saw 36. Only when the coach was moving off and three people came running out of the hotel…

Near the Wailing Wall, there was space to try a simple solution, borrowed from primary schools. We formed two lines – but added our own wails at being only 35. Then we spotted one pilgrim with OCD sixty meters away - snapping this unusual event from a distance.

Alas. Someone. Cured. Of. Photosensivity. Walked. Between. The. Camera. And. Us.