My role in the ROADMAP project is quaintly called “Consumer Representative.” This means I have been though the joint infection process (I lost count after about 13 operations in three hospitals) and came out with my life and my leg still attached. Unfortunately, that leg is only partially functional, but it did earn me a disabled parking permit.

The task is for me is to look at the program's communications with people who have been though a similar disaster, to explain how participating in the study can help science, and once they agree, to understand what is happening. As such I seek to wield an axe to excessive acronyms and impenetrable medical jargon. I am also the guard dog to remind of the emotional devastation caused by such medical tribulation.

I was born in Sydney in 1950 and spent most of my working life as a print journalist, mainly with The Age in Melbourne. In the early 1980s I spend three years as press secretary with the Victorian premier before returning to journalism.