You show up to the office for work one morning, and upon punching in at the time clock, your editor approaches you and tells you that you're going to be writing a profile piece about a highly-acclaimed medical expert – an extremely intelligent specialist, who just so happened to make several groundbreaking discoveries throughout his/her career. As you head to your desk, the editor stops you once more to tell you that you have an interview with said medical expert in two hours.
With time ticking away, what's the first thing you do in order to prepare for the interview?
If your answer didn't have anything to do with researching the background of the interviewee, I'd be highly surprised. After all, one primary responsibility one would hold as a journalist is that one must always conduct extensive and thorough research, in order to obtain and report accurate facts for your story.
For example, let's pretend I have an upcoming interview with highly-respected neurologist, Dr. V.S. Ramachandran. Before I continue with my example, let's take a look at his background . . .
This is Dr. Vilayanur Subramanian Ramachandran – the "Marco Polo of neuroscience"
One of Time's 100 Most Influential People of 2011, and a writer of over 180 scholarly journals and articles, Dr. V.S. Ramachandran has changed the way we perceive the human brain. Shortly after receiving his M.D. from Stanley Medical College in Madras, India, Dr. Ramachandran moved to the University of Cambridge to study human psychophysics and neurophysiology, and received his Ph.D. in 1978. While known throughout the scientific community for his various works and studies in neuroscience and visual perception, his most famous accomplishment was his discovery that the source of "phantom limb pain" does not emanate from the peripheral nerves near the amputated limb, but from changes in the brain itself. To alleviate and, in some cases, even cure the pain from phantom limbs, Dr. Ramachandran would place a mirror to reflect a patient's existing limb in such a manner that would make it appear as the missing limb. As the patient rearranges his/her limb into a more comfortable position, the reflected limb appears to move along at the same time. In turn, this would change the brain's skewed image of the phantom limb, and in most cases, the patient's pain would cease.
An example of what is known as "mirror therapy"
To prepare for my interview with Dr. Ramachandran, I would conduct some background research on him and his accomplishments with the use of websites, such as:
1) Time – A highly-recognized and reputable magazine in the industry, Time is an excellent news agency with published articles that are highly informative and well-written, yet relatively easy to read and understand.
2) University of California, San Diego's Center for Brain and Cognition – As this is where he is employed, this website for UCSD's Center for Brain and Cognition has his summarized biography, as well as a list of his scholarly works.
3) University of California, Los Angeles – In some instances, one has to dig over a broad range to find more details regarding the subject. In this case, I was able to find some more details on where and when Dr. Ramachandran went to school, from an old university website for a colloquium held at UCLA in 1998.
4) National Public Radio – For many years, NPR has offered its listeners various radio programs of all sorts of topics. In this instance, I chose to use NPR as a source, so I would know what to expect in terms of how he handles himself in interviews (i.e. how loud/quiet he talks, how talkative he is in conversation).
5) Mirror Box Therapy – This is a website dedicated to mirror box therapy, a form of mirror therapy, and has various posts for browsers to learn more about how it works. As Dr. Ramachandran pioneered mirror therapy to treat pain from phantom limbs, I decided to do more research on the form of therapy, itself.
Now that I've done some basic background research on Dr. Ramachandran, I would then have my questions and be ready for the big interview. But with so much ground to cover, and so many questions to ask, I might wonder to myself – "What should I ask him first? Where do I begin?"
To stick with the example, in which I was assigned to write a profile piece on Dr. Ramachandran, I think the first question I would ask him would be something to the effect of, "How did your interest in researching the effects of phantom limb pain and how it can be treated come about?" As the profile piece's angle would be more focused toward his accomplishments in this particular sect of neuroscience, I would ask this question first to get more information about how he got interested in this phenomena, and how he came about the discovery of mirror therapy.
All in all, it takes a significant amount of work to prepare yourself for an interview with a medical expert, especially if the story is about the expert and his/her accomplishments in their field. But with the proper level of background research from the proper sources, one could pass through the interview with ease and put together an impressive story for the readers.
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