What qualifies John to help people like you? First, vast experience in advising and coaching people in healthcare services and companies, regulatory and professional bodies, universities, teaching hospitals, government departments and medical charities, big and small. Second, vast experience as a journalist and author. Third, an external perspective. 

John and his associates specialise in in media training, crisis management, presentation skills, message development and writing skills They also have extensive moderating experience.

John founded JIC in 2000 after working for both the professional and consumer press (see right hand panel) and as a visiting lecturer and tutor at the University of Westminster in London. He still works at Westminster where he helped to pioneer Europe’s first BA (Hons) Medical Journalism course for medical students. In 2012 he received an outstanding teacher commendation. He also co-ran for eight years a communications course for science postgraduate students at the University of Cambridge. 

John has won many awards as a journalist and author and has more than 300 broadcast credits, the latest in July 2016, when he won the Medical Journalists Association award for the best feature for a specialist audience.

 John started his career in the theatre at the Nottingham Playhouse and with the New Southwold Repertory Company - experience he finds invaluable in presentation skills training. He spent six years as chair of the Medical Journalists’ Association and is still on the executive committee. He was also for five years a member of the UK Institute of Psychiatry external advisory committee. 

The New Book

Handling the media: communication and presentation skills for healthcare professionals
John Illman. JIC Books. 
"Highy Commended":  British Medical Association Book Awards 2017. September 11

 

John Illman:

      Previous jobs include: 

  • Founder editor: New Psychiatry
  • Editor: General Practitioner
  • Medical correspondent:  Daily Mail
  • Health editor: The Guardian
  • Medical correspondent: The Observer
  • Columnist: Woman

Reports:

  • Pathways to the mind (1984) 
  • The Expert Patient (2000)
  • Animal Research & Medical Advances (2007) 
  • The MJA Guide to Clinical Trials (2014)
  • Childhood blood cancer: The quest for a kinder cure (2017)

Books: 

  • The Body Machine (1981) with heart transplant pioneer Christian Barnard; 
  • Use your brain to beat Depression (2004); 
  • Use your brain to beat Panic and Anxiety (2005); 
  • Beat Panic and Anxiety (2006); 
  • Politics, Protest and Progress: 100 years of animal research – the History of the Research Defence Society (2008); 
  • Handling the media: communication and presentation skills for healthcare professionals (2016)