WEBVTT - Special Episode: Gabriel Weston & Alive 0:00:44.200 --> 0:00:47.559 Hi, I'm Aaron Welsh and this is this Podcast Will 0:00:47.640 --> 0:00:51.640 Kill You. Welcome to another episode in the tp w 0:00:51.920 --> 0:00:54.960 k Y book Club series, where I get to interview 0:00:54.960 --> 0:00:58.640 authors of popular science and medicine books about their latest work. 0:00:59.240 --> 0:01:02.800 We have covered some fascinating topics so far this season, 0:01:02.960 --> 0:01:05.920 from the history of the pelvic exam to the origin 0:01:05.959 --> 0:01:10.120 of language, the world of regenerative medicine, and how everything 0:01:10.400 --> 0:01:14.240 truly is tuberculosis. If you'd like to see the full 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:17.479 list of books we've covered in this season and past seasons, 0:01:17.640 --> 0:01:20.160 head over to our website This Podcast Will Kill You 0:01:20.200 --> 0:01:22.759 dot com, where you'll find a link to our bookshop 0:01:22.800 --> 0:01:26.480 dot Org affiliate page under the extras tab. That page 0:01:26.560 --> 0:01:31.120 has lots of TPWKY booklists, including one for the book Club. 0:01:31.480 --> 0:01:34.480 I'm always updating these lists, so check in regularly to 0:01:34.520 --> 0:01:38.319 see what's new or upcoming. As always, we love hearing 0:01:38.319 --> 0:01:41.720 from you all, whether it's a book suggestion, episode suggestion, 0:01:41.880 --> 0:01:44.959 first hand account, or anything else on your mind, so 0:01:45.080 --> 0:01:47.800 please feel free to reach out through our contact us 0:01:47.920 --> 0:01:51.080 form on our website. Thank you to everyone who has 0:01:51.120 --> 0:01:55.040 sent in book suggestions. I truly appreciate it. Two last 0:01:55.080 --> 0:01:57.720 things before we dive into the episode, and that is 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:00.960 to first rate, review, and subscribe if you haven't already. 0:02:01.040 --> 0:02:03.680 It really does help us out. And second, we are 0:02:03.720 --> 0:02:07.080 now releasing full video versions of most of our episodes. 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.680 Make sure you're subscribed to exactly Right Media's YouTube channel 0:02:10.760 --> 0:02:14.720 so you never miss a new episode. Drop How does 0:02:14.760 --> 0:02:18.840 our heart pump blood? How does our gut digest food? 0:02:19.440 --> 0:02:23.919 How do our lungs draw in oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide? 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:28.200 Medical training focuses on the how and the why of 0:02:28.240 --> 0:02:31.960 our bodies, the anatomy and physiology of all the parts 0:02:32.000 --> 0:02:35.400 that keep us alive and healthy, what happens if they fail, 0:02:35.639 --> 0:02:39.520 and how to fix it. There are diagrams and charts 0:02:39.560 --> 0:02:44.120 and atlases that help instill specialize knowledge in medical trainees 0:02:44.360 --> 0:02:49.760 that they can use to heal, to relieve, and to repair. Sometimes, 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.400 over the course of a career, a doctor might find 0:02:52.440 --> 0:02:56.160 themselves forgetting that a kidney is not just a kidney, 0:02:56.560 --> 0:02:59.960 it's this person's kidney. A heart in need of star 0:03:00.000 --> 0:03:04.520 surgery is more than Tuesday's operation. It's the beating muscle 0:03:04.600 --> 0:03:09.679 that has faithfully kept this mother, son, friend, spouse alive 0:03:09.919 --> 0:03:14.600 for the past fifteen thirty sixty ninety years. And it's 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.600 not just medical professionals that may benefit from a moment 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:21.600 of reflection on what it means to live in our bodies. 0:03:22.280 --> 0:03:24.960 When is the last time you thought about your skeleton, 0:03:25.200 --> 0:03:29.480 the bones inside you, and how it supports us? When 0:03:29.480 --> 0:03:33.040 have you last looked over your skin, examined the scars 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:37.440 and freckles and wrinkles, and appreciated how it protects us 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:41.800 and holds us together. In Alive, our bodies and the 0:03:41.880 --> 0:03:45.880 richness and brevity of existence, Award winning writer and surgeon, 0:03:46.000 --> 0:03:50.440 Doctor Gabriel Weston transcends the usual boundary between doctor and 0:03:50.560 --> 0:03:54.520 patient to instill a sense of humanity in our bodies. 0:03:55.160 --> 0:03:58.600 Throughout each chapter, she explores a different part of the body, 0:03:59.000 --> 0:04:02.400 examining not just how it works, but what it has 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:06.000 meant throughout history and how it has shaped the story 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:10.080 of her life. The liver with its incredible capacity for 0:04:10.200 --> 0:04:17.520 regeneration and transplantation. The brain unfathomably complex and yet so vulnerable, 0:04:17.920 --> 0:04:21.640 as doctor Weston discovers with her son, the womb that 0:04:21.880 --> 0:04:25.480 nurtures and provides, and that has been used to control 0:04:25.560 --> 0:04:31.479 women for millennia. A profound blend of memoir, science and meditation. 0:04:32.040 --> 0:04:36.200 Alive is a beautiful, absorbing book that honors what it 0:04:36.279 --> 0:04:41.039 means to be human with our incredible yet not infallible bodies. 0:04:41.760 --> 0:04:44.719 I really loved chatting with doctor Weston, so we'll just 0:04:44.760 --> 0:05:02.680 take a quick break here before getting into the interview. 0:05:12.120 --> 0:05:15.080 Doctor Weston, thank you so much for joining me today. 0:05:15.560 --> 0:05:18.360 Thank you so much for having me. I'm absolutely thrilled 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:20.680 to be part of this podcast. Oh, thank you. 0:05:21.320 --> 0:05:25.360 It means the world well. In your latest fantastic book, Alive, 0:05:25.680 --> 0:05:29.960 you take readers on this really thoughtful and captivating tour 0:05:30.080 --> 0:05:34.279 through the human body. You weave together your personal experiences 0:05:34.320 --> 0:05:37.640 and reflections with the history and the science of the 0:05:37.680 --> 0:05:40.480 body parts that you explore. So tell me how did 0:05:40.480 --> 0:05:41.719 this book take shape? 0:05:42.480 --> 0:05:45.040 I mean, I think, first and foremost, it just came 0:05:45.080 --> 0:05:47.640 from this place of and this is why I called 0:05:47.640 --> 0:05:50.839 it Alive, this sort of sense that as doctors and 0:05:50.880 --> 0:05:54.360 medical students that the anatomy that I was taught at 0:05:54.400 --> 0:05:57.600 medical school and as the basis for my surgical training 0:05:58.160 --> 0:06:01.360 had this kind of dead call to it. So, you know, 0:06:01.440 --> 0:06:05.359 physiology always felt like it was a kind of experimental 0:06:05.440 --> 0:06:09.640 sort of specialty, and pathology, of course, had all the fantastic, 0:06:09.760 --> 0:06:12.880 wonderful illnesses that are so exciting. But there was something 0:06:12.880 --> 0:06:16.400 about anatomy, which I had expected that I would love, 0:06:16.600 --> 0:06:20.919 that just seemed really kind of inanimate, and almost like 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:24.160 the way it was taught was inanimate as well. And 0:06:24.600 --> 0:06:26.680 basically I got to this point sort of twenty five 0:06:26.760 --> 0:06:30.839 years into my surgical experience, where I started realizing that 0:06:30.880 --> 0:06:34.599 actually the facts of anatomy are not as inert as 0:06:34.640 --> 0:06:37.479 we were led to believe, and also that many of 0:06:37.520 --> 0:06:40.839 those facts don't really apply to women or people of color. 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:43.640 But then, I think even more than that, I had 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:48.159 this feeling, as a doctor who was herself getting older 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:52.720 and going through lots of life's experiences, that actually the 0:06:52.760 --> 0:06:56.919 way that we live in our bodies is so ever 0:06:57.040 --> 0:07:01.480 changing and so kind of like not just a progress. 0:07:01.600 --> 0:07:03.320 You know, you have times in your life where you 0:07:03.320 --> 0:07:06.039 feel like you're going backwards and where everything has collapsed 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:08.400 in on itself, And I just sort of thought it 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:11.640 would be really interesting to try and write a book 0:07:11.680 --> 0:07:15.440 that was almost like an alternative anatomy that would allow 0:07:15.520 --> 0:07:18.640 me to explore some of these kind of spaces that 0:07:19.040 --> 0:07:21.160 I didn't feel I saw anything of when I was 0:07:21.240 --> 0:07:22.080 learning myself. 0:07:22.880 --> 0:07:25.080 Yes, and I think that is what is one of 0:07:25.080 --> 0:07:28.760 the things that makes this book so valuable is being 0:07:28.800 --> 0:07:31.360 able to see the body parts and read about these 0:07:31.360 --> 0:07:33.520 body parts, not just in the way that you are 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:35.960 exposed to it in a medical class or even in 0:07:36.000 --> 0:07:39.320 a history class, but it's this bigger picture, that complete, 0:07:39.400 --> 0:07:44.000 more beautiful picture. And each chapter kind of goes into 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:48.520 a different body part. You've got gut, lungs, kidneyed, genital's heart, 0:07:48.600 --> 0:07:51.000 and so on many more. And I'm curious how you 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:54.960 decided on this organization, especially the order of the chapters. 0:07:55.440 --> 0:07:57.560 I mean, I was very keen that the book should 0:07:57.600 --> 0:08:00.200 start with a post mortem, because I thought, in a way, 0:08:00.280 --> 0:08:03.040 like the dead body, and the first chapter of the 0:08:03.040 --> 0:08:05.600 book is called dead, that in a way is my 0:08:05.760 --> 0:08:09.120 start points as a surgeon, as a kind of medical 0:08:09.160 --> 0:08:11.680 student that once was, as I was saying before, this 0:08:11.800 --> 0:08:14.400 kind of sense that the anatomy I was taught was dead. 0:08:14.880 --> 0:08:16.960 And I thought, if I can begin the book not 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:19.640 just with a dead body, but actually with a kind 0:08:19.680 --> 0:08:24.480 of language that feels very cold and clinical, then that 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.960 will be a kind of start point from which the 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.840 rest of the book should be almost a coming alive 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:34.920 of not just the body itself, but my way of 0:08:35.120 --> 0:08:38.720 kind of integrating my understanding of the body when it 0:08:38.760 --> 0:08:41.360 came to the actual like organs and which ones to 0:08:41.400 --> 0:08:44.079 go first and stuff. I mean, in a very sort 0:08:44.080 --> 0:08:47.240 of light way. I had all of the piles of 0:08:47.320 --> 0:08:49.400 organs on the floor at one point, and I remember 0:08:49.520 --> 0:08:52.680 kind of noticing that a lot of the organs have 0:08:52.800 --> 0:08:56.840 got memories of my own body in them, and I 0:08:56.920 --> 0:08:58.960 sort of thought, I wonder if I could just very 0:08:59.080 --> 0:09:03.000 lightly arrange them in order of my age. So, for example, 0:09:03.040 --> 0:09:05.760 you know, I think I remember a nasal fracture from 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:08.240 when I'm a child in bone, which is the first organ, 0:09:08.720 --> 0:09:11.240 and then obviously womb is an organ I wanted to 0:09:11.280 --> 0:09:15.040 put later so that I could examine childbirth, manopause, all 0:09:15.040 --> 0:09:17.360 that kind of stuff in there. So there is some 0:09:17.640 --> 0:09:21.880 sense in which these organs are kind of telling the 0:09:21.920 --> 0:09:25.400 story of my body, but you know, it's not super visible, 0:09:25.480 --> 0:09:27.640 so it was more like a kind of scaffolding for 0:09:27.760 --> 0:09:29.480 my sake rather than the readers. 0:09:30.080 --> 0:09:34.040 Throughout your book, you share many personal stories with the readers. 0:09:34.080 --> 0:09:36.599 You give them it's really intimate glimpse into some of 0:09:36.679 --> 0:09:40.280 the most challenging times of your life. And I was 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:44.200 wondering whether that was difficult to be vulnerable in that way, 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:46.120 or to put so much of yourself out there. 0:09:46.559 --> 0:09:49.480 I mean, it's such a great question. And what I 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:53.600 find really difficult actually is not vulnerability, and it's not 0:09:54.920 --> 0:09:57.760 telling the truth of my experience of the body. I 0:09:57.840 --> 0:10:02.080 think my difficulty is I think in medical literature, I 0:10:02.080 --> 0:10:05.839 don't mean like textbooks, but more kind of popular medical literature, 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:10.880 there is a lot of sentimentality that attaches to the 0:10:10.920 --> 0:10:14.400 way that people write about the body. You know, it's 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:17.280 I mean, it's a hard thing to describe without sounding 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.280 slightly psychopathic, but I slightly feel, particularly as women, that 0:10:21.360 --> 0:10:25.160 there's this sort of expectation that if we're writing, for example, 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:28.480 about childbirth or motherhood, that there should be a kind 0:10:28.520 --> 0:10:31.280 of softness to the way that we do that, when 0:10:31.280 --> 0:10:35.559 in fact, many of my experiences of certainly of motherhood 0:10:35.640 --> 0:10:39.600 have not been soft, fuzzy, nurturing ones. They've been ones 0:10:39.640 --> 0:10:42.400 that have been kind of full of confusion and sometimes 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:47.400 rage and exasperation and even regret at times. And so 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.400 I think what I wrangled with was not the sense 0:10:51.520 --> 0:10:54.080 that there was anything that I didn't want the reader 0:10:54.200 --> 0:10:58.360 to get to see about me, but that I wasn't 0:10:58.440 --> 0:11:01.400 wanting to write in a set mental way or in 0:11:01.440 --> 0:11:04.880 a way that I felt for me would not be true, 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.800 and so it did mean kind of departing from a 0:11:09.840 --> 0:11:13.880 lot of the sort of medical writing that I have read, 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:17.800 particularly written by women, where I feel sometimes there's this 0:11:17.920 --> 0:11:22.280 expectation of, you know, what these feelings ought to be 0:11:22.360 --> 0:11:26.360 around death and birth and reproduction and love and all 0:11:26.400 --> 0:11:29.360 this stuff. So I think always kind of as a 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:35.160 feminist writer, I'm very keen to have myself be an 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:39.800 example maybe of a slightly like monstrous female who doesn't 0:11:39.840 --> 0:11:42.600 always feel all of these nurturing feelings that I think 0:11:42.600 --> 0:11:45.160 were Still there's still such a great expectation that we 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:45.679 should have. 0:11:46.720 --> 0:11:48.960 Let's take a quick break, and when we get back, 0:11:49.120 --> 0:12:08.240 there's still so much to discuss. Welcome back everyone. I've 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:11.480 been chatting with doctor Gabriel Weston about her book Alive 0:12:12.040 --> 0:12:15.320 Our Bodies and the richness and brevity of existence. Let's 0:12:15.360 --> 0:12:19.800 get back into things. I'm sure that that also filters 0:12:19.840 --> 0:12:22.120 into not just your role as a writer, but also 0:12:22.200 --> 0:12:24.800 your role as a surgeon and how you are expected 0:12:24.840 --> 0:12:28.000 to be or think or feel about your patience or 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.440 about your own self. 0:12:30.120 --> 0:12:31.920 I think so, and I think I mean in a way. 0:12:31.920 --> 0:12:34.840 One of the things that I find most beautiful about 0:12:34.840 --> 0:12:37.800 the body as a writer, as a doctor, but also 0:12:37.880 --> 0:12:40.800 just as a human walking around as a woman, is 0:12:41.559 --> 0:12:44.960 you know, if you have a thought, it is very 0:12:45.200 --> 0:12:48.200 likely that most other people are having that thought to you. Like, 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:49.960 you're going to have thoughts and you're going to think 0:12:50.000 --> 0:12:51.920 you're the only person in the world that is having 0:12:51.960 --> 0:12:55.400 those thoughts or desires, or you're going to think that 0:12:55.480 --> 0:12:57.920 you've just thought something that is the most shocking thing 0:12:57.960 --> 0:13:00.600 that you could even ever imagine someone thinking. It is 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:04.640 highly unlikely to be that shocking. And the body as well. 0:13:04.760 --> 0:13:08.360 I feel like the way that we experience kind of 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:11.880 life's big changes and events through our bodies. It's like 0:13:12.480 --> 0:13:16.319 if the body is kind of telling you I feel discussed, 0:13:16.520 --> 0:13:19.560 or I feel desire, or I feel fear, or I 0:13:19.640 --> 0:13:23.920 feel longing, it's okay. And sometimes we might have those 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:29.040 feelings in odd circumstances, and I like putting that on 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.520 the page, but I absolutely have I just have an 0:13:32.559 --> 0:13:39.160 aversion to doctoring and writing that is about telling people 0:13:39.520 --> 0:13:43.240 what they're experiencing in that moment. So yeah, that's a 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:44.000 big thing for me. 0:13:45.360 --> 0:13:49.559 Your background is not necessarily you didn't start out your career, 0:13:49.679 --> 0:13:53.320 your adulthood with designs on becoming a doctor. Can you 0:13:53.360 --> 0:13:55.640 tell me a little bit about your atypical journey. 0:13:56.040 --> 0:13:58.520 Yeah, yeah, So, I mean in the UK, we have 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.400 this crazy system where when you're about sixteen you have 0:14:01.480 --> 0:14:05.000 to choose three subjects that become the only three subjects 0:14:05.040 --> 0:14:07.320 you're going to study at school, and then usually you 0:14:07.400 --> 0:14:09.960 choose one of them to go on and do it university. 0:14:10.679 --> 0:14:13.520 And I gave science up when I was thirteen as 0:14:13.640 --> 0:14:16.600 soon as I possibly could, so I had to keep 0:14:16.679 --> 0:14:19.400 one science for what we call GCSE, which is a 0:14:19.480 --> 0:14:23.360 kind of fifteen sixteen year old style exam. And then 0:14:23.400 --> 0:14:25.840 after that science disappeared from my life. That was a 0:14:25.880 --> 0:14:29.600 great relief to me, and I had a year out. 0:14:29.720 --> 0:14:32.040 Then I went off to do English and philosophy. You know, 0:14:32.080 --> 0:14:33.960 English was always the thing that I was good at, 0:14:34.000 --> 0:14:36.360 so it seemed like the obvious choice of thing to 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:39.960 read at university. And then when I was at Uni, 0:14:40.040 --> 0:14:43.720 I just started kind of discovering that whenever someone was 0:14:43.840 --> 0:14:47.720 sick or someone like fell off a ladder or broken 0:14:47.880 --> 0:14:51.320 arm or it was around the time that Er was 0:14:51.400 --> 0:14:53.760 on TV for the first time. That's how old I 0:14:53.800 --> 0:14:56.640 am now that It came on around that time that 0:14:56.680 --> 0:14:59.640 I was doing my English degree, and I noticed that 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:03.520 I was much more than usually interested in all of 0:15:03.560 --> 0:15:07.080 this stuff, and not from the point of view of 0:15:07.960 --> 0:15:11.200 I did not have an overarching desire to help people. 0:15:11.280 --> 0:15:14.880 That was not the impulse. The impulse was just pure, 0:15:15.640 --> 0:15:22.440 untrammeled fascination, like kind of not okay style fascination. And 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:25.720 then completely by happenstance, one of my friends, who was 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:28.840 a maths student, his dad came to visit us up 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.600 in Edinburgh, and his dad was a surgeon, and this 0:15:31.760 --> 0:15:33.160 was back in the day where you know, there were 0:15:33.200 --> 0:15:35.480 no mobile phones or anything like that, and he had 0:15:35.520 --> 0:15:40.360 these old school photo albums in his car filled with 0:15:40.480 --> 0:15:43.520 photographs that he or his scrub nurse had taken when 0:15:43.560 --> 0:15:46.840 he was operating. And I remember everyone else went out 0:15:46.840 --> 0:15:50.560 clubbing and drinking. He and I stayed in alone, and 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:52.920 at the end of that evening he said, next time 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.080 you're in London, give me a call. You can come 0:15:55.080 --> 0:15:57.960 to my operating theater. So I did that. I was 0:15:57.960 --> 0:16:00.400 about twenty one, back in the day where you could 0:16:00.480 --> 0:16:03.840 just rock up to someone's operating theater with no credentials, 0:16:04.480 --> 0:16:10.160 and I just literally walked into this room and it 0:16:10.240 --> 0:16:13.960 was like I was having some kind of religious conversion. 0:16:14.320 --> 0:16:19.520 I mean, I was just beside myself with excitement. And 0:16:19.560 --> 0:16:22.280 I went a couple more times after that, and then 0:16:22.320 --> 0:16:24.320 I kind of thought, I don't really see how I'm 0:16:24.360 --> 0:16:27.360 going to make be able to make surgery a hobby. 0:16:27.440 --> 0:16:28.960 I don't think that's going to be a kind of 0:16:29.600 --> 0:16:32.280 socially acceptable thing for me to be doing in my 0:16:32.360 --> 0:16:35.320 spare time. So after a little kind of while of 0:16:35.440 --> 0:16:37.240 arming and ring, I just thought, I think I'm going 0:16:37.280 --> 0:16:40.040 to have to go and be a doctor. So I 0:16:40.080 --> 0:16:42.680 had to go back because I had English, French and 0:16:42.760 --> 0:16:46.000 Latin A levels and I had to basically do all 0:16:46.040 --> 0:16:48.200 the science A levels that would get me a place 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:52.520 at medical school. And then into medical school I went. 0:16:52.600 --> 0:16:55.880 And the crazy thing was that, apart from that early 0:16:56.040 --> 0:16:57.920 year where I had to do all the science and 0:16:57.960 --> 0:17:02.640 it was so difficult for me, really the rest of 0:17:02.680 --> 0:17:06.360 it was kind of fine. It's like I loved it 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:09.840 and I had this amazing feeling that most of the 0:17:09.840 --> 0:17:13.480 other medical students didn't have, of like a kind of 0:17:13.760 --> 0:17:18.160 glorious sense of the glamour of being a medical student 0:17:18.320 --> 0:17:20.600 who had come from a background where it didn't seem 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:23.680 like that would ever be possible. And so I never 0:17:23.840 --> 0:17:28.720 quite lost my sense of the kind of in loveness 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.679 with the persona of this new person that I was, 0:17:32.960 --> 0:17:35.800 And in a way, I think I still have that now. 0:17:35.880 --> 0:17:38.800 It's like when I go into the operating theater now 0:17:38.840 --> 0:17:41.639 to do you know, very small surgery with you know, 0:17:41.840 --> 0:17:44.919 very low risk and kind of nothing to write home about. 0:17:45.280 --> 0:17:48.119 When I put my scrubs on, I just still feel 0:17:48.119 --> 0:17:51.199 that's very cool, you know, I've never lost that sense, 0:17:51.320 --> 0:17:54.040 and so I think there's a lot to be said 0:17:54.240 --> 0:17:57.080 for that, you know, for kind of whatever it is 0:17:57.119 --> 0:18:00.480 that makes you keep loving it. And I really, I mean, 0:18:00.520 --> 0:18:03.320 even despite our NHS being in the most kind of 0:18:03.520 --> 0:18:09.920 powerless state, the actual business of being a doctor who 0:18:09.960 --> 0:18:15.639 gets to handle people's bodies it's just a joy, isn't it. 0:18:15.720 --> 0:18:20.639 It's just it's like intimacy of the most extraordinary, beautiful 0:18:20.720 --> 0:18:22.320 kind that life has on offer. 0:18:23.560 --> 0:18:27.239 You write about the human body with such care and 0:18:27.280 --> 0:18:32.240 with such lyricism. It shines through along with your endless 0:18:32.320 --> 0:18:36.920 curiosity about the human body and about your own ability 0:18:36.960 --> 0:18:39.960 to express your stories. And I wanted to kind of 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.719 get into a few specific parts of the body that 0:18:42.760 --> 0:18:46.280 you covered in your book, starting with bone. So in 0:18:46.320 --> 0:18:49.480 your chapter on bone, you talk about the common misconception 0:18:49.600 --> 0:18:53.080 that bones are these static, unchanging things, when really they 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.880 are very dynamic. Can you talk about how our use 0:18:57.080 --> 0:19:00.840 of the skeleton as the symbol of death really contradicts 0:19:00.880 --> 0:19:02.920 the true vitality of bones. 0:19:03.400 --> 0:19:06.200 Yeah, I mean, skeleton's so interesting, isn't it, because it's 0:19:06.240 --> 0:19:08.919 like lay people. You don't have to be a doctor. Like, 0:19:08.960 --> 0:19:11.639 we all know what skeletons look like. Kids know what 0:19:11.680 --> 0:19:14.280 they look like. They wear Halloween costumes with skeletons on 0:19:14.320 --> 0:19:16.119 the front of them, and you can go for a 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.480 walk in the woods and like see a bird skeleton. 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.160 And most of us have touched bones, you know, whether 0:19:22.160 --> 0:19:25.399 we're eating a chicken wing or whatever. We have a 0:19:25.600 --> 0:19:30.159 very kind of established sense of what bones are. And 0:19:30.280 --> 0:19:34.280 yet when you see bones inside a body that is alive, 0:19:34.840 --> 0:19:38.720 they're not like that at all. So for this book, 0:19:38.800 --> 0:19:41.920 I went to there's an amazing orthopedic hospital just outside 0:19:41.960 --> 0:19:44.800 of London called the Royal National and I went there 0:19:44.800 --> 0:19:48.400 and saw an amazing surgery where a guy was basically 0:19:48.720 --> 0:19:52.199 removing a tumor from a woman's thigh bone and he 0:19:52.320 --> 0:19:54.360 had to kind of take an enormous length of her 0:19:54.400 --> 0:19:57.119 thigh out in order to take this tuma out. And 0:19:57.160 --> 0:20:00.760 when they were sawing through the femur, it's just so 0:20:01.119 --> 0:20:05.000 struck by the cross section of this biggest bone in 0:20:05.040 --> 0:20:08.280 the body that it was filled with marrow, and it 0:20:08.359 --> 0:20:11.080 was filled with blood vessels, and it had this kind 0:20:11.160 --> 0:20:17.160 of live, yellowy looking periostium, and it just I looked 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:18.920 at it and I thought, it's just not at all 0:20:18.960 --> 0:20:21.240 the way you would think bones are. And then of 0:20:21.280 --> 0:20:24.159 course when you look at the physiology of bone, you 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:28.160 realize that bone is kind of changing itself all the time. 0:20:28.320 --> 0:20:30.639 So the bone, you know, the bones that you have today, 0:20:30.680 --> 0:20:33.760 you wouldn't have had ten years ago. Every year, ten 0:20:33.800 --> 0:20:37.000 percent of our bones are being remodeled by a process 0:20:37.040 --> 0:20:41.240 of you know, osteoclasts removing old bits and osteoblasts putting 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.800 in new bits. So I think even this kind of 0:20:45.040 --> 0:20:48.560 symbol of death, when you look closely at it inside 0:20:48.560 --> 0:20:51.360 the living body, which obviously most people don't get to do, 0:20:52.080 --> 0:20:55.400 you just see that it's alive in a way that's 0:20:55.440 --> 0:20:58.240 really counterintuitive and really beautiful. 0:20:58.880 --> 0:21:01.919 It's like, instead of ship of theseus, we have the 0:21:02.000 --> 0:21:05.159 skeleton of theseus. You know, the bones that we have 0:21:05.359 --> 0:21:07.760 now are not the bones that we started out with. 0:21:07.840 --> 0:21:13.320 They've just been continuously remodeled throughout our entire lives. And 0:21:13.760 --> 0:21:16.960 in your chapter on the womb, you take readers on 0:21:17.040 --> 0:21:21.399 journeys through the inner workings of this amazing organ. You know, 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:25.200 the ways that it's been used to dismiss or harm women, 0:21:25.760 --> 0:21:30.040 as well as your own experiences in childbirth, both you know, 0:21:30.119 --> 0:21:34.600 as the one giving birth and as the one observing childbirth. 0:21:35.320 --> 0:21:39.480 Did any part of this chapter feel especially meaningful or 0:21:39.640 --> 0:21:40.840 challenging to write? 0:21:41.240 --> 0:21:43.919 Yeah, I mean, like you say, it's such an incredibly 0:21:44.040 --> 0:21:46.639 sort of dynamic organ, the womb when you think it 0:21:46.680 --> 0:21:49.400 sort of begins as something the size of a small pair, 0:21:49.560 --> 0:21:52.440 and then if you're pregnant, you know, it occupies your 0:21:52.600 --> 0:21:57.080 entire abdomens, so it kind of it presents itself as 0:21:57.119 --> 0:22:00.199 something to write about, almost like the most beautiful kind 0:22:00.200 --> 0:22:05.000 of metaphor for changeableness, and that really appealed to me. 0:22:05.160 --> 0:22:07.840 And then it kind of, you know, it kind of 0:22:07.920 --> 0:22:11.920 intersepted with really in a way. The main drive behind 0:22:11.960 --> 0:22:14.879 this book is this kind of philosophical desire that I 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:19.080 have all the time with the body to somehow occupy 0:22:19.160 --> 0:22:24.479 that space between being in a body and observing a body, 0:22:24.680 --> 0:22:28.720 you know, like where that's the mystery, isn't It is 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:31.440 like when you're a surgeon. You're standing at the operating cable. 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:34.640 You have your hands inside someone's body, but your own 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:38.120 heart is beating, your lungs are working, your hands are 0:22:38.200 --> 0:22:42.240 warm because of blood running through them. I'm so struck 0:22:42.520 --> 0:22:46.679 always by that kind of like a desire to be 0:22:47.160 --> 0:22:50.200 and know at the same time, which never feels possible. 0:22:50.200 --> 0:22:52.080 It's always like a hologram that you have to kind 0:22:52.119 --> 0:22:54.280 of flip from one side to another of And So 0:22:55.280 --> 0:22:57.679 when I had my so my first two children, I 0:22:57.720 --> 0:23:00.280 had vaginal the second two at the same time by 0:23:00.320 --> 0:23:02.880 sea section because they were twins, which was also kind 0:23:02.920 --> 0:23:04.919 of cool because I thought I get to kind of 0:23:04.960 --> 0:23:07.800 experience all the ways that the womb can give birth 0:23:07.840 --> 0:23:11.040 to children. And I just thought it would be really 0:23:11.160 --> 0:23:16.160 interesting to get in touch with the obstetrician who delivered 0:23:16.200 --> 0:23:19.720 my babies by sea section, which I did about six 0:23:19.760 --> 0:23:21.359 months after they were born. I mean, I think she 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:24.439 probably thought I was crazy, but she was very accommodating, 0:23:25.040 --> 0:23:26.600 and I just sort of said to her, like I 0:23:26.880 --> 0:23:30.320 really I want to see what you did to me. 0:23:30.440 --> 0:23:32.320 I want to kind of be on the other side 0:23:32.359 --> 0:23:35.000 of the line, like having Laine on that table with 0:23:35.240 --> 0:23:39.760 my womb open and you pulling my twins out. I 0:23:39.800 --> 0:23:42.119 want to stand there next to you with my scrubs on, 0:23:42.160 --> 0:23:44.919 seeing you do that to someone else. And so in 0:23:44.960 --> 0:23:49.200 the womb chapter, I'm really exploring that kind of very 0:23:49.359 --> 0:23:54.400 female again. I think it's a very existentially deep part 0:23:54.760 --> 0:23:58.920 of being a female, this way that our bodies are 0:23:59.200 --> 0:24:03.320 the thing that life is enacted on, but it is 0:24:03.480 --> 0:24:07.840 also self. It's like, if we are to express agency, 0:24:08.280 --> 0:24:11.520 it's through our bodies. And yet the second you hit 0:24:11.560 --> 0:24:15.439 puberty as a girl, you're suddenly aware that the world 0:24:15.720 --> 0:24:19.879 is objectifying you. And so I felt like the womb 0:24:19.960 --> 0:24:23.240 was a really really exciting organ to look at some 0:24:23.359 --> 0:24:27.480 of those things through and then just as the icing 0:24:27.520 --> 0:24:31.359 on the cake. I also, for the BBC went to 0:24:31.640 --> 0:24:35.760 Sweden to see a womb transplant being performed. That was 0:24:35.880 --> 0:24:38.359