IN PERSON: The Nosocomial Project: ‘All Opinions In This Blog Are My Own’ Showcase And Conversation

“So, this is my first ever blog post. Bear with me as I don’t really know what I’m doing. I’m what is known as a Clinical Scientist and I work in Infection Control.”

Thus began the first blog post by Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green, Lead Healthcare Scientist at Great Ormond Street Hospital, in December 2015. It would be five years and one pandemic before her second post, in October 2020, began her weekly blog as ‘Girlymicro’ (‘scientist changing the world one swab at a time’).

Girlymicro blogged at first about the job, to promote Healthcare Science, offering professional exam or interview advice for HCS trainees, before ranging more widely, into women in science, the challenges facing HCS, exploring the limits of what overstretched teams and individuals can achieve, saving lives in labs through insight, accuracy and interpretation.

Each blog written in a snatched hour, Girlymicro became a mental space populated with personal reflection, meditation on loss, favourite microbes, special guests, puppet shows, and… zombies; always with Elaine’s trademark humanity and humour.

‘All Opinions In This Blog Are My Own’ is a showcase of a devised work in progress based on the Girlymicro blog by The Nosocomial Project, adapted by Nicola Baldwin, performed by two actors, Becky Simon and Peter Clements, and two Healthcare Scientists, Anthony De Souza and Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green.

The short performance will be followed by a conversation on writing and blogging. Why blog? What might you learn along the way? Does writing create a safe space for reflection? Or create new pressures? To blog or not to blog…. That is the question.

All welcome.

Maximum: 30 people

Image: Dr Elaine Cloutman-Green

Image credit: Julia Lockheart, DreamsID.com.