Hive Health

This month’s Hive Review looks at an exhibition.

As one of the incurably curious, the Wellcome Collection is my favourite science museum in London. When I found out that the newest exhibition explored “what humans have done to brains in the name of medical intervention, scientific enquiry, cultural meaning and technological change” I popped down as soon as I had a spare moment. As usual the exhibition didn’t disappoint.

With over 150 artefacts including real brains, artworks, manuscripts, videos and photography, ‘Brains’ asks not what brains do to us, but what we have done to brains. The exhibition isolates the brain from the individual and presents it as a purely scientific object: something which can be measured, classified, modelled and mapped, sliced, freeze-dried and pickled.

Presented as a maze of four sections, the exhibition reflects this: ‘Measuring’ defines the relationship between the brain’s function and form, ‘Mapping’ explores anatomy, ‘Cutting’ delves into the gory history of surgical intervention and Victorian quackery, while ‘Giving’ deals with brain harvesting and research.

Alongside a wealth of scientific information, what really make this exhibition unique are the art pieces interwoven throughout.

Curator Marius Kwint selected works by contemporary artists, who responded to the form and physical matter of the brain in various ways. There are abstract offerings in Katharine Dowson’s glass laser render of a her own brain which from afar looks like a delicate puff of silk, Susan Aldworth’s watercolour series and stills from Andrew Carnie’s film ‘Atlas’. There are also some touching works exploring the brain’s physicality, such as photographer Corrine Day’s pictures of herself before brain surgery, and Ania Dabrowska’s portraits of brain donors alongside podcast monologues. Rather than being ghostly these recordings are gentle and reflective making them one of my favourite sections of the exhibition.

All in all ‘Brains: Mind as Matter’ is science communication at its best: complex medicine interwoven with art and beauty (and a little bit of gore). It’s on until the 17th of June and it’s free, so I suggest you take your brain down for a little look.

This week I have been heading a couple of categories of the Communiqué awards. An honour and delight to sit, chair and discuss such talent. Midst one entry discussion we got deep into the different approaches we take on how we view our audience. Are ‘they’ our targets, inert fodder for campaigns and as such need protecting by our paternalism, or  do we feel that they are intelligent enough to spot a ruse, and sit alongside in the quest for better health.

I can’t get into specific on the category or the entry but the room was divided. I feel we could learn a lot from the ad man exceptional; David Ogilvy.  Ogilvy was passionate, to the point of dangerous, when he encountered agency folk who felt that the divide between us (marketers) and them (consumers) was huge. Terms like ‘punter’ were banned and a deep level of respect was insisted upon. In his mind our target audience were people to respect and cherish not dumb down and patronise.  “The consumer is not a moron, she is your wife.” -David Ogilvy, Elements of Advertising. Published in 1983 sums it up for me.

Horst Faas, a two-time Pulitzer Prize-winning war photographer who later was editor of The Associated Press staff in Saigon, died on Thursday in Munich. He was 79. If you are a fan of photography, communication and visual talent this should give cause to pause and reflect on a human being who nailed  audience respect better than anyone. Whether that be New York Times readers havig breakfast or Communist insurgents featured in the haunting photographs of the Vietnam War he never presumed to protect or provide anything but the naked reality of the situations he saw.

If you are unfamiliar with his work, he is responsible so many of the images we have of  the horrors of war. He managed the transition from field to office as Editor if AP without compromising his desire  to educate and inform.  “I don’t think we influenced the war at any time,” he said in 1997. “I don’t think we helped to win it or helped to lose it. We didn’t work on the outcome of the war.” Making photographs about the suffering and horror of war, he said, is simply better than not making them. Such talent balanced with such pragmatism.

This weekend, one of my housemates insisted I read the reviews for Veet for men on Amazon. How he came across these is something that I will never ask and am trying to block from my mind. After reading them (once I’d finished all the crying and hiccupping that embarrassingly for me come with being particularly amused) it really made me think about how differently men and women read and act on instructions and how this may impact on the way they take medicine.

With this in mind, I looked up a woman’s review for standard Veet (for those of you that have never heard of it, it’s a feminine hair removal cream which has seemingly now decided to tackle the “metrosexual” market). The review went pretty much as one would expect:

“It’s good, worked well, the first time I tried it I worried about leaving it on too long as it says 3-6 mins. It took slightly more than 3 mins for it to work and I was worried that I was too slow when taking it off but it was ok. Sometimes it didn’t take off all the hair but that may have been because i didnt leave it on long enough…”

So this lady had read the instructions, cautiously adhered to the guidelines and been worried that even by straying slightly from the recommendations,  she may suffer the potential ill-effects highlighted.

The men’s reviews demonstrated an entirely different approach to following the instructions; I have sampled three reviews below:

“Being a loose cannon who does not play by the rules the first thing I did was ignore the warning and smear this all over my knob and bollocks. The bollocks I knew and loved are gone now. In their place is a maroon coloured bag of agony which sends stabs of pain up my body every time it grazes against my thigh or an article of clothing. I am suffering so that you don’t have to. Heed my lesson. DO NOT PUT ON KNOB AND BOLLOCKS.
(I am giving this product a 5 because despite the fact that I think my bollocks might fall off, they are now completely hairless.)”

“I like the clean shaven look down in my gentleman’s log cabin, so for the past few years I’ve used a shaver. However the hair keeps growing back which means every 6 months I have to spend 20 minutes trimming again. As I’m sure you’ve realise this is valuable time I cannot waste. So I decided to get to the root of the problem and purchased this product.
Probably the first thing you will notice after using this product is the pain. Although as a man I lack the required experience, I’m going to estimate that using this product is at least eleven times more painful than childbirth.
Imagine sticking a rusty razor blade into your favourite eye, before tying your hands behind your back. Then imagine that you use the entrenched razor blade to slice open a raw onion. All the while being butt naked. This product is slightly more painful than that.
However if we ignore the blinding, crippling and debilitating pain I should point out that this product is remarkably effective. Before, all manner of organisms great and small lived down there, now nothing can grow; not even on a cellular level. Sadly this includes my genitalia; I’ve spent the last four hours staring fixedly at Carol Vorderman’s arse, all to no avail. My tinkywinkleton hasn’t even so much as perked up, so if my review seems a bit harsh, it’s only because I wanted children.”

“Although I understood the part about ‘intimate use’ I could not find anything about this not being for nose or ear hair. I get fed up with constantly cutting myself whilst trying to cut my ear and nose hair with a pair of Kitchen Scissors, so I decided that this product would work for me. I rubbed it up into my nostrils and around the outside of my ears. Very soon the burn started and trust me it really makes your eyes water. Probably more that if it was on your knob or bollocks like the other reviewer did. If your eyes do water, make sure the product is not on your hands when you go to wipe your eyes as this product also removes eyelashes and eyebrows and makes your eyes water even more. I look like I have been put on a sunbed for too long and people keep asking me why I am crying. Still, a good product which does what it says”

The first two exhibited a flagrant disregard for the recommendations whilst the third’s interpretation of these was questionable to say the least.

What needed to be done in the instruction leaflet to avoid their gung-ho attitude towards “intimate use”? Should there be an Orwellian voice triggered on opening the pack that repeats “not for use on your knob and bollocks” (just to avoid any misinterpretation about “intimate use”) until the tube is safely replaced? Neon sign? Or would making the tone of the instructions different suffice?

We do currently consider typical patient types within each therapy area, ensuring that tactical plans take into account age, ethnic backgrounds, socio-economic status, concomitant conditions etc. but should we start adjusting language to compensate for a difference in gender-related interpretation. Could we improve compliance and correct self-administration of medicines by tailoring communications by gender (in non-gender specific therapy areas)?  Judging from those reviews, tailored instructions may avoid any unpleasant surprises.

It’s rare to experience a piece of media that hits you straight between the eyes, providing a level of intimacy that leaves you feeling honoured to have been present. Midst a lonely post wedding journey back from the Peak District this afternoon Radio 4s Omnibus kept me company between the horizontal rain, the storm force winds and the endless M1.

Specifically The Listening Project. A gem of a collaboration between BBC Radio 4, BBC local and national radio stations and the British Library. Tasked with capturing the nation in conversation to build a unique picture of our lives today and preserve it for future generations it’s a brilliantly gentle and real picture of who we are as a nation. If you are ever sat at your desk trying to find a voice for the rich collective of humanity we write for then I could recommend no better time spent than here. For me its  a healthy reminding kick to remember the real people that go through life not distant demographic classifications.

Please excuse my poor editing of the podcast attached I didn’t want the whole podcast only the health related conversation. It was this submission by BBC Radio Ulster that left me attempting to wake my catatonic girlfriend up on the back seat to no avail. After years of dialysis and declining health, Brendan was the recipient of a kidney donated to him by his older brother Kyron. They talk candidly about what this has meant for both their lives. Emotional heartwarming treasure.

One to the kidneys