As a layer of snow coats London, it’s clear we’ve reached that time of year to look back on all the things 2022 has brought us. We’ve seen a lot this year, from major sporting events to political upheavals and a national mourning period. In the workplace specifically we’ve had a much-awaited return to some form of normality, as we were all able to be together in the office a lot more often than before.
So, to celebrate the end of another year filled with more successes and fewer lockdowns, we wanted to share some quintessentially TVF moments from the last 12 months in a classic festive format:
The 12 days of TVF Comms…
Even though we continue to grow, the harmony of our multi-talented team has not been diluted. We’ve come together to achieve a lot this year – keep reading for some of the highlights…
One exciting project we undertook this year was creating social media content in collaboration with two ‘skinfluencers’, each living with a dermatological condition: atopic eczema and psoriasis. The content for both was developed with the aim of being shared on their respective disease awareness days: World Atopic Eczema Day, which occurs every year on September 14th, and World Psoriasis Day, occurring annually on October 29th. The content centred around each patient and their unique experiences with the condition; this touched on the lesser known, invisible symptoms of visible conditions, daily obstacles faced, affirmations, and encouraging messages to others in their communities to not be afraid of reaching out for support. These ‘skinfluencers’ are a wonderful example of the bravery of real patients, who are willing to share their stories in order to help spread awareness and build communities for patients who may otherwise feel alone in their experiences. Working with patients such as them reminds us of the importance of the work we do and never fails to humble us.
Disease awareness campaigns are one of the core pillars of what we do at TVF; by raising awareness for conditions and the burdens currently placed on patients living with them, we can help provide access to appropriate care for undiagnosed patients and help improve the quality of life for diagnosed patients by helping others understand their experiences. For expert help with your upcoming disease awareness campaigns, please get in touch with us today!
OK – so this isn’t specific to just us, but the whole British nation. Even so, one memorable moment in our office this year was watching the live stream of prime minister number 2 outlived by a lettuce. If you don’t laugh, you have to cry…
We remain as dedicated as ever to our existing clients, but with the growth of our team we’ve also been able to develop some brand-new partnerships this year. Our wonderful client roster has been expanded to include four new accounts working across neuroscience, anaesthesiology, hematology and dermatology. We couldn’t be more excited to see what the New Year brings for the work we’ll do with them to help patients around the world!
We specialise in the development of many different materials and communication channels, ranging from social media and website development to congress planning and advisory board facilitation. But one old faithful throughout the years has been the publication. So far this year, we’ve already seen five papers being accepted and published by journals, with contributions from our very own medical writing team. To round off an already successful year, in December alone we’ve submitted another five papers, and we’re looking forward to seeing these published in the New Year.
Although London is our primary residence, we are proud to have our second home in the city of Boston, Massachusetts. After a time not so long ago when we were unable even to leave our homes, let alone take up residence in a new city, we were delighted to have members of our London team seconded to our offices there throughout 2022.
We learned invaluable things from these trips about working across time zones, U.S. vs UK culture, and the importance of thoroughly vetting air bnbs – but most importantly were able to spend a lot of quality time with our U.S. clients throughout the year.
We know we won’t be the only ones happy to be back on the ground after attending purely virtual, or occasionally ‘hybrid’, events over the previous couple of years. We took full advantage of this return to normality, sending members of the team out to see the fruits of our labour in-person at 7 different events throughout 2022: EULAR, ERA, ELM, ERS, IDWeek, ECCMID, & WORLD.
These congresses specialized in a variety of fields and specific disease states: rheumatology, renal medicine, respiratory medicine, microbiology, infectious diseases, lysosomal diseases, and lupus. We are so proud to have been able to see the months of hard work we put in prior to these events materialise – especially in knowing that we’re helping to share valuable knowledge and new developments with HCPs, helping them to provide the best possible care to their patients.
This is clearly also a shameless plug for the range and diversity of our medical knowledge – so don’t hesitate to reach out if you need an expert hand with upcoming congresses!
This is only an educated guess at the exact number, but there were certainly a number of times this year the team gathered to celebrate together, and then inevitably, to suffer together. Such occasions included: an elaborate summer party involving playing rounders (less glamorous), being driven around in an old London bus (more glamorous), and finishing on an open top boat with dinner, drinks, and a dancefloor (most glamorous); a joint 10-year anniversary celebration, with obscure quiz questions about the celebrants that those not present for the duration were fated to struggle with; and a series of cocktail nights in our brand new cocktail bar venues: our newly built office café, and always-existing-but-only-just-having-its-potential-revealed ‘rooftop terrace’ (small balcony outside our MD’s office).
As we’ve already touched on, one of the definite highlights of this year has been able to get out and see the world again, (mostly) restriction free! Other than being out in Boston, this year we’ve had members of the team jet off to Zurich, Chicago, Florida, Washington DC, Barcelona, Paris, Copenhagen, Lisbon, and Stockholm. We hope this is just the beginning of our international rebirth, and that 2023 brings yet more opportunities for adventure abroad.
As we’ve grown, we’ve of course had to train up our new starters to be up to par with the standard of our existing team. While our new starters were indeed subjected to 2 straight weeks of training, we hope it wasn’t as intense as it sounds! We tried our best to make this time at the start of their budding careers as useful and engaging as possible; both through mixing up the content and format of trainings and adding in a healthy sprinkle of team building activities and drinks. We were also able to use these activities to help determine whose competitive streak may come in handy later, or who is most likely to get involved in our upcoming socials.
We took on more graduate talent than ever before. 11 fresh faces in the team have certainly added to the energetic and youthful approach we’re known for, bringing with them new perspectives, and generally brightening up the office. We can’t wait to see all the new ideas they’ll be sure to contribute as they develop even further in the New Year.
We did it! The year is closing out, and I’m sure we speak for everyone when we say how much we’re looking forward to a very well-deserved rest over the festive period.
Then we’ll be back refreshed in the New Year, ready to keep on doing what we do best: helping our clients in their important work to improve the lives of patients worldwide: producing innovative treatments and resources, raising awareness of lesser-known conditions, and putting medical knowledge in the hands of the healthcare professionals that need it.
Here at TVF, we prioritise staying up to date and contributing to new breakthroughs within medicine. As a trusted, award-winning medical communications agency, TVF specialises in raising awareness of pharmaceutical advances, combining science, creativity, and strategy to deliver high-quality communications to a range of audiences. To read more on what we contribute, please click here.
