
Sign up to save your podcasts
Or


Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the pioneering surgeon Professor Ara Darzi. He was born in Iraq and brought up in Baghdad but he moved to Ireland when he was 17 to study medicine. He came to England to finish his training and, highly talented and ambitious, was made a consultant when he was barely out of his 20s. Since then he's been nick-named 'Robo-doc' for spearheading the use of keyhole surgery in Britain and for introducing robotics to the operating theatre.
For the past year he has combined his surgical work with a position in government - he is a health minister and, on the eve of the NHS's 60th birthday, he is charged with reshaping the NHS in England. It is, he says, the greatest challenge he has yet faced.
Favourite track: Seven Seconds by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry
By BBC Radio 44.6
128128 ratings
Kirsty Young's castaway this week is the pioneering surgeon Professor Ara Darzi. He was born in Iraq and brought up in Baghdad but he moved to Ireland when he was 17 to study medicine. He came to England to finish his training and, highly talented and ambitious, was made a consultant when he was barely out of his 20s. Since then he's been nick-named 'Robo-doc' for spearheading the use of keyhole surgery in Britain and for introducing robotics to the operating theatre.
For the past year he has combined his surgical work with a position in government - he is a health minister and, on the eve of the NHS's 60th birthday, he is charged with reshaping the NHS in England. It is, he says, the greatest challenge he has yet faced.
Favourite track: Seven Seconds by Youssou N’Dour and Neneh Cherry

7,718 Listeners

1,066 Listeners

390 Listeners

5,474 Listeners

1,809 Listeners

1,784 Listeners

1,043 Listeners

2,078 Listeners

2,011 Listeners

74 Listeners

68 Listeners

51 Listeners

57 Listeners

3,223 Listeners

737 Listeners

1,042 Listeners

101 Listeners

101 Listeners

857 Listeners

421 Listeners

51 Listeners

160 Listeners

84 Listeners

489 Listeners

24 Listeners