A Healthcare Art Director’s Journey: Becoming a Patient
Nothing makes one better at their job as a healthcare marketing art director than actually experiencing healthcare firsthand. I’ve always been relatively healthy – doing my fair share of exercising physically and mentally, and eating “kinda” well. I rarely visited my doctor’s office, except for the usual appointments. More honestly, I steered clear of doctor visits almost entirely. I routinely even avoided taking ibuprofen for common aches and pains associated with running. As healthcare marketing creatives, we put ourselves in the shoes of patients to find out what messaging resonates with them. Pretty ironic stuff – here I am in this healthcare advertising world that I clearly try to avoid in my non-working world through my own preventive measures. I’ve gleaned a solid chunk of my healthcare knowledge purely from being surrounded by it for the past 10 years – concepting campaigns, learning about healthcare technology, reading statistics, focus groups, etc. You can gain a lot of information that way (and I have), but to experience healthcare firsthand was an area that I personally lacked.
To read the Deb Salzer’s full article about “stepping into the role of a patient”, click here. This blog post has been shared with permission from HTK Marketing Communications.