Last week, I spent three days in Hobart, on the island of Tasmania. Besides strolling around looking for cafes where I could drink decent coffee and write, my main work-related activity was
giving a talk at
Menzies Institute for Medical Research, part of the University of Tasmania. About 40 people attended, a quarter or so of them medical professionals and the rest patients and carers.
Anyway, after the Hobart talk, a young neuroscientist from the university spoke about efforts to launch a biomedical research project for the illness right there. He had trained at Oxford so was very familiar with the PACE approach and with members of the CBT/GET ideological brigades. He said he’d noticed a definite shift in attitudes towards the illness among colleagues in the last year or two. That was great to hear. It meant that the changes that have seemed apparent among those who know something about the issue might actually be filtering down to medical and health care professionals and researchers not directly involved in this particular struggle.
That talk took place the day after the SBS network aired
a moving segment about the challenges Australians with ME/CFS face in seeking benefits. The young journalist who produced the segment, Simon Cunich, captured a few seconds of me in a teary-eyed state while discussing what had motivated me to work on this project. It seems like crying on national TV can boost a crowdfunding campaign! Who knew?
