07 February 2015

Clean shaven

Working where I do, I have a lot of patients who are actors or work in TV. Recently we had a TV producer who makes adverts. He had a fever so I needed to take a travel history. Why you need to travel the globe to make advertisements I have no idea but, worryingly, he had been to all sorts of exotic places. My heart sank as I struggled to remember all the weird and wonderful tropical diseases I might have to consider.

But that's not at all the point of this post though it does set the scene and explains how we got talking. It turns out that one of my patient's assignments was to make an advertisement showing men how to examine their testicles. (Perhaps I should watch this film as I've not much idea myself.) My patient found an actor who was apparently willing to demonstrate on camera. They talked about how they would get the right shots. The actor then asked, "Do you think I should shave?"

"Oh no," my patient replied. "I think we should show them au naturel."

"No, no," said the actor. "I meant my face."