Editorial
Written by John Hardie - Editor-in-Chief
As this is my final column as Editor-in-Chief and the final issue of the year, I hope you’ll allow me a little indulgence. I also have a few confessions to make, but we’ll come to that later.
In December 2010, I was appointed Editor-inChief of the Medical Student newspaper. The Medgroup president carried out interviews after a formal application process. He waxed lyrical about the grand history and successes of the newspaper. I was impressed. I had great ambitions. I was convinced that this publication would change the lives of London medical students forever.
Two weeks later I sat there with nothing but a (broken) laptop, some hypothetical funds in the bank to ‘get us going’, and the offer of free black and white A4 printing. My brief was to ‘Produce an A4 newsletter... or something by next month’. I had no idea how to use design software, I’d never written a journalistic article in my life, and thought that a ‘sub’ was something ordinarily confined to the bedroom.
To top it all off, it turned out that the paper hadn’t actually been printed the preceding year or two at all as the previous team had stolen the contents of the bank account and run off to become FY1s. Joy.
By February the next year, the new team was assembled and ready to go. It was a miracle that the first issue got to print. After an all-night, eighteen-hour session, we sent the paper to the presses an hour late. We were printing on the same press as the Daily Mail who were threatening to oust us entirely because of our apparent inability to function as reasonable human beings. The next day we fell asleep in our firms, our lectures, in the shower and our plates of food at lunchtime (seriously).
But, despite the adversity, we’re still here a year later. Well and truly. We’ve distributed 35,000 print copies around London, had 164,010 unique online page views and printed 284 original articles. That’s quite an achievement for a group of full-time students.
On a personal level, there have been some major perks to being the Editor. Namely, the items sent to me to review. These have included brain tumour removal tools, Marxist propaganda, and a SheWee.
Finally, I’d like to offer everyone who has contributed to the newspaper over the past year my sincere thanks, whether the contribution was small or large. It has been a genuine pleasure working with you. Congratulations to Purvi Patel who has been elected EditorinChief 2012. Long may the paper continue to thrive under her leadership.
Also, a little apology to the male members of the committee I’ve sent a total of 10,168 emails over the past year, making such excessive use of your laptop’s Wi-Fi that your spermatozoa DNA has possibly been damaged somewhat. Sorry chaps.
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