As Virginia herself describes it, she arrived at New Zealand Doctor Rata Aotearoa in 2007 “one story at a time” – venturing into freelance writing after a career as a newspaper reporter, subeditor, editor and journalism tutor.
Our archives suggest that since then she has amassed a portfolio of over 3000 articles, including her first prescient piece in the 6 June 2007 issue headlined “Expat sees grim future for GPs”.
For the last three years, Virginia has primarily been our chief subeditor based in Matamata. For those unfamiliar with newspaper doings, that is the person who checks the grammar, spelling, sense, style and length of stories before they are published – all while keeping their colleagues, mostly, placated.
Before Matamata, Virginia was our Wellington correspondent – writing daily news and features. Perseverance is at the heart of her writing. For some feature stories she would work away for weeks until she had all the elements to file a fair report. Fairness is key to her professional code.
At the same time, she could turn around a daily news story with speed. A regular assignment was the annual Budget lockdown, digesting pages and pages of figures and releases for her eagerly awaiting colleagues and New Zealand Doctor readers.
Perhaps her biggest claim to “fame”, beyond our newsroom, is taking the cover shot of Ashley Bloomfield for a 2017 profile which went on to be pirated around the world during the pandemic.
Her portfolio for New Zealand Doctor includes some crackers. Two that spring to mind are the “The Chilling Effect: Silencing healthy debate” about the use of guerilla-style PR tactics to stop health professionals speaking publicly on health issues. And “Disabled by a system: Straw men and short straws” on how the health system fails people with disabilities and their families.
The impact of climate change on health and health systems has been a long-time interest for Virginia and last year she returned to writing, filling most of our “Green Health” edition with stories of people and policies making a difference. She’s tackled a few clinical dilemmas along the way - does exercise work, what about placebos and what's up with pain?
But I expect she most cherishes the profiles she has written on people at the coalface, particularly those working in Māori health.
Virginia’s coverage of the Wai 2575 hearings and her determination to hold others, and indeed our own newsroom, to account for our Māori health coverage has made us a better publication.
Personally, Virginia has been my sounding board and on hand to pull me back “on-piste” when I head too far into the world of whimsy with my own writing.
She has also been an unfailing supporter of the creation of The Health Media when the future of New Zealand Doctor was uncertain in our previous incarnation.
She tells us she is off to spend more time in the garden, with her camera and volunteering.
Wherever words need polishing, I expect she’ll be there.
Thanks Virginia.
