I now suffer from spellcheckophobia too

What is your fear? Glossophobia, arachnophobia, claustrophobia, acrophobia, astraphobia, nyctophobia, ophidiophobia? Sid Dajani reveals his own phobia

Me? I'm phobophillic! Well, I was. Not now.

I recently had a particularly scary experience while taking part in a discussion panel. Dr Dawn Harper scared the bejesus out of me when I was asked to join a panel discussing overactive bladders and urgency incontinence, not as an expert patient but as an expert provider of help and support. There were six of us from different specialities there: a dietician, a nutritionist, a journalist, two TV doctors and myself. The meeting was convivial and uncontroversial, interesting, informative and educational, until I started talking about how pharmacists deal with embarrassing conditions.

Both the TV doctors and everyone there were surprised to learn that pharmacists have confidentiality agreements, most pharmacies now have a consultation room and our premises are regulated. Dr Dawn Harper from 'Embarrassing Bodies' fame, in agreement with Dr Roger Henderson, asked why this was not public knowledge as they felt pharmacies were the place where you discussed your embarrassing medical problems over the counter while people next to you were buying nail polish!

A pleasant surprise

I said many users of pharmacies were aware of our very strict confidentiality, anonymity and privacy rules, and explained for example that my soundproofed consultation room is also used for prescribing, blood screening, medicines optimisation through MURs and NMS, public health and clinical services.

They were truly and pleasantly surprised and wondered why this wasn’t public knowledge. They suddenly became very supportive, but the news journalist was far more skeptical; I think she had a double helping of the pessimistic, cynical gene we are all born with. I duly signposted them all to their local pharmacies and NHS choices to discover more for themselves.

After the meeting we posed for photographs and both Dr Dawn and Dr Henderson both said they learned a lot. They gave me their cards. Perhaps it was barefaced cheek when I gave them my practice leaflet!

My brush with fame this month extended beyond TV and into the realms of international politics. I was invited to Athens to talk about the 2009 Cost of Service inquiry, which basically showed that independents are far more cost efficient to the taxpayer than multiples.

Greece is in financial dire straits, though you wouldn’t think it from the bustling and busy streets filled with laughter, joviality and spirit. My presentation also focused on efficiency savings and where pharmacy can help the economy and support health, eg, through smoking cessation services and MURs. Afterwards I received an email from the physician brother of an ex-president of France asking for a copy of my slides, requesting a telephone discussion and suggesting a trip to Paris.

Spellcheck nightmares

But it all nearly ended in disaster before it began. As I was writing my rushed presentation in between chores, I nearly missed a crucial error. Predictive texting and automatic spellcheck are subtle enemies. For example, after a night out with friends when I was feeling exhausted, a female friend text me the following morning enquiring how I was feeling. I typed: “Just woken up and feeling perfect, thanks”, and sent it. Her exact reply was: “Sid, that's way too much information but glad you’re better”. I was shocked to discover my phone changed a minor misspelling of 'perfect' into 'erect'. Worse still, erect was in capitals!

On another occasion I texted my colleague to apologise for getting his wife's name wrong, admitting my embarrassment and asking for forgiveness. However, the text he received said: “I’m sorry, I’m bare-arsed. Please forgive me”. There you have it, a bare-arsed apology as opposed to barefaced cheek and I had to apologise for the apology!

Understandably I now suffer from spellcheckophobia too. So there I was checking through my Athens slide set and the background to the cost of service enquiry, which included some words around the 2005 community pharmacy contract and the regulation of premises – literally before pressing the send button and leaving for the airport.

I was shocked to find a spelling of community pharmacy had been automatically changed to ‘common untidy pharmacy’. I was basically saying 'common untidy pharmacies' are the best thing since sliced bread, we can do the populations and governments a great service, we are value for money, professionally-driven and common untidy pharmacies are the most trusted resource with a very high patient satisfaction return rate.

Pharmacy faux pas

At the airport I sweated through the nightmare scenario of speaking at an international conference with a backdrop of slides about great 'common untidy pharmacies’. My ghoulish faux pas would have made Edgar Allan Poe look like the writer of fairy tales and Stephen King the sort of man who writes greetings for Hallmark. Lon Chaney would decline the script and Boris Karloff wouldn't even read it. That bad!

I've done over 500 presentations in my lifetime, both nationally and internationally. Some presenters have a fear of standing up and their trousers falling down, mine is the spellcheck you can't turn off. I’ve always said that what made me who I am now is the sum of all the humiliations I suffered during childhood and if that's true then what I'm learning now must be preparing me well for the afterlife. Either that or I'm still experiencing childhood!

Yesterday I was relieved and somewhat reprieved to find someone else challenged by technical typing difficulties when I received a prescription that read 'Insert one every night for a week then twice a week per vagina'. A sense of relief and reprieve washed over me.