After my earlier posting, Peter suggested I provided a brief roundup of my day and how I ended up here in New Zealand.  So, here goes!

Imagine… it’s a dank, dark, day, its mid-January 2011, and you’ve worked over Christmas as part of the run up to American Society of Clinical Oncology (ASCO) submissions (or FI-ASCO as I endearingly call it). Your client is on the West Coast of the US and you’re working until silly o’clock again for the nth time in a row to cover the US time zone.

Well, that’s how my journey to Auckland, New Zealand began.  I will spare you the full details of my journey (for now…), but working long nights was getting pretty tedious, and the solution seemed simple – flip time zones! I could then start work earlier in the day and finish earlier! I guess that’s the magic of MedComms, with a laptop and a phone you can work almost anywhere with a few minor exceptions (Antarctica anyone?).

At 7:30 am this morning, I checked my emails from home. My clients are a US MedComms agency, and so given the overlap in time zones, there is a window of opportunity up to 11am New Zealand time to read and respond to any emails, or chat to the client if needed.  And then it was off to the beach to walk the dog!  Auckland has fantastic beaches, and even in the middle of winter it is pretty mild. This also gives me the opportunity to mull over my work for the day, and consider what my priorities should be.

At 8:30 am(ish), suitably refreshed after walking the dog and a short trip to the office, I got straight into my day of medical writing.  I received a brief overnight to write an outline for a manuscript for a top-tier general medical journal. First, I listened to a recording of the kick-off call with the authors and client, and the rest of my day was then spent writing the outline. The great thing about working in New Zealand is that I can do the part of a medical writing job I REALLY enjoy… the writing! For the client, having a writer in New Zealand allows projects to be kept moving forward around the clock.  They can effectively work all 24 hours in the day, and no-one drops through exhaustion.

As your working day begins, I’m now on the beach (see below). I’ve now handed the baton over, and it’s now up to you to keep that MedComms wheel spinning, until tomorrow that is…

Mark now works in New Zealand at Biowrite Solutions