Sunday, July 20, 2008

Radio Therapy for Embarrassing Moments

Now that I've been here over 4 months, I felt it was time to raise my public profile. Conveniently, Adi's friend Josh is an MD who takes part in a weekly radio show entitled "Radio Therapy". The show has been airing for about 15 years on the RRR (Triple R), which is one of the local versions of NPR.

According to the RRR Web site, Radio Therapy "(e)xplores the lighter, more eccentric side of medicine. A team of irreverent doctors lampoon sacred medical cows, and shed light on a range of medical and psychiatric conditions with special guests from around Australia and the Globe."

Last week, one of their segments was a discussion of the use of Simulated Patients and the guest from "around the Globe" was none other than yours' truly.

Mind you, this was not my first foray into the bright lights and glory of radio. When I worked @ CU's Center for the Study of the Prevention of Violence" I was the mouthpiece for the Center during a live broadcast in Mississippi (or maybe Alabama- I can't recall). The topic then was a discussion of two mothers who'd been in a knife fight on school property on behalf of their offspring. No one else happened to be in the office at the time which is how I was able to comment, given my illustrious background as a field rep for a bullying program.

And when at the Y, shortly before my departure to Israel, I had a phone chat with Brett Saunders of the famed KBCO to discuss the Y's summer camp offerings, most notably our Garage Rock camp. That interview would have been fine had I not tried to be cute at the start and tell Brett what a fan I was by quoting the stations' advertising tag line "I am KBCO" Little did I know the tape was already running.

I was determined not to embarrass myself in such a way again. I prepared some short sound-bites and brought an ally with me, a long-time Simulated Patient. I've gotten good responses from my supervisors and friends. I myself can't vouch for the quality of the program because I couldn't' stand to listen to it. I sound SO AMERICAN with my accent interwoven with all the polite Aussie ones. But if you'd like to have a listen, here's the podcast:

http://rrrfm.libsyn.com/index.php?post_id=358268#

My segment starts about 15 minutes into the show...though the beginning of the show does have some research related to the Viagra-like properties of watermelon that might be of interest to some.

Please, let me know if you think I embarrassed myself.

Luckily, I refrained form doing just that when I finally figured out the meaning of an abbreviation I often see here. When I first arrived, I noticed a Hebrew word printed on the sides of some buildings all around my neighborhood. "hazchem". I kept meaning to ask Adi what Hazchem (pronounced hahz- CHem) meant in Hebrew...I thought perhaps it denoted a kosher, blessed place or perhaps the places where you were allowed to carry things on Shabbos. As I ventured out into the city, I was surprised to frequently see this demarcation all over Melbourne. Now, Melbourne does have the large number of Holocaust Survivors outside of Israel and has a healthy Jewish population of over 50,000. But the majority of Jews live in my neighborhood and its environs so I wasn't sure why there was such respect of Jewish traditions on the other side of the river.

Well, I'm glad I never asked for I finally realized that "Hazchem" is Australian for HazMat...Hazardous Chemicals. So I saved myself from humiliation-- or at least I had until his blog.

So, with that I leave you to listen to some down under talk radio!

Till next time, watch out for Hazchem!

2 comments:

HK said...

Nice job. Sounded like you knew what you were talking about (to me at least). Picking up some lingo - "winging" (sp?) --- I had to ask MLM what that meant.....

-HK

Sheryl said...

whingeing...not sure how to spell either i guess...yes, its australian whining...but worse apparantly.