Ara Darzi

Presenter0:00

Hello, I'm Kirsty Young, and this is a podcast from the Desert Island Discs archive. For rights reasons, we've had to shorten the music.

Presenter0:08

The programme was originally broadcast in two thousand eight.

Presenter0:26

My castaway this week is the pioneering surgeon Professor Ara Darcy.

Presenter0:31

A world expert in keyhole surgery, he's also been nicknamed Robo-Doc for introducing front-line technology to the operating theatre. Born in Iraq, an early brush with death sparked a lifelong passion for the power to heal. He went on to study medicine in Ireland, moving to England to finish his training. Young, talented, and possibly a little impatient to display his surgical skills, he would spend his Friday and Saturday nights hanging round hospitals, waiting to see if he could make himself useful. And he did. He was offered a consultant's post when he was scarcely out of his twenties. A professorship and a knighthood followed soon after. So now, Aradarzi, as well as spending half your time in hospital, you are a health minister. You're charged with

Presenter1:17

The not inconsiderable task of shaping the NHS for the demands of the patients of the future. I can't imagine you exactly needed other work to fill up your time. Why on earth did you take on the task?

Ara Darzi1:27

Well, I got the phone call last year from the Prime Minister, and to my complete shock, I was gopsmacked when he turned around and said he wishes me to undertake a review of the NHS and appoint me as a Minister of Health in his government. A great privilege to be asked. I've always enjoyed a challenge. It was very challenging.

Ara Darzi1:47

Decision to make for a period of time, but once I

Ara Darzi1:52

I was convinced that I could maintain my clinical and scientific activity. I was more than happy to contribute four days a week to lead this major review of the NHS.

Presenter2:03

But did you ha you sound as if you had to be convinced. I mean, did you turn him down?

Ara Darzi2:07

Uh you know, this took me by complete surprise. You know, I've I've always had ambitions and I always had aspirations to do things, but this certainly wasn't on my list.

Presenter2:17

You've said in the past that you have been blessed with what you called a huge appetite for discovery. Is that is that what drives you?

Ara Darzi2:24

Absolutely. I mean, that goes back to my early training days. I worked with someone who always reminded me you should challenge everything you are currently doing and think what else could you do to make it better.

Presenter2:36

And what about I mean, I described in the introduction a little mischievously the the idea that you would hang around as a a doctor on a Friday and Saturday night in these hard pressed units hoping that you could pick up the the work that was uh going spare'cause there weren't enough doctors around to do it. You you genuinely gave up your weekends to do that.

Ara Darzi2:53

I was a medical student. I wasn't even a doctor. And the only way as a medical student you get really a feel of what medicine and surgery was all about was to hang around out of hours and the weekends because the teams were much smaller in size. So there was a use for you. And I remember on one occasion as a medical student, actually, I operated on a patient. And the master surgeon was on the other side of the table and assisted me. And what was the operation? I took someone's appendix out. It was the most exciting day in my life. You know, I was a medical student. I had a year to go to become a doctor. And I was allowed to do this. I have done a lot of practicing because I remember taking suture material from the nurse's station and tying knots around my knee at night. And so I did this operation. And it was my first sense of accountability because I remember going back and seeing this patient on an hourly basis to make sure the patient was okay. And I even remember keeping the patient in for an extra day to make sure that he is perfect before he left hospital.

Presenter3:53

So tell me about your first choice today then. What have you chosen?

Ara Darzi3:56

My first choice is an Armenian hymn. I used to be an altar boy in a church, in Baghdad, in an Armenian church, every Sunday. Very long service, three hours. I could see the pictures, the smells, and uh a three hour church service in a very hot environment, and this reminds me of those days.

Speaker 24:27

Please let God

Presenter5:08

The Haismovwurk choir, singing the traditional Armenian hymn Yechayet Sin Haika Khan. So, Aradazi, music that music in particular, speaks to you of your heritage. You are Armenian, but you are brought up

Presenter5:20

In Iraq, what was life like as a little boy, a tiny boy?

Ara Darzi5:24

What I remember of it, it was fine. I mean, Baghdad in those days was a very nice cosmopolitan city, little clubs where you can play tennis and sports. There was a significant Jewish community there. And both, you know, the Armenians and the Jews very much stuck together. I went to a Jewish school, very disciplined school, very academic, you know, not even a playground. There was no such thing as sports. It was really, you know, grilling of academic activities, what I remember of it.

Presenter5:52

It it sounds to me, though, like a quite a contained life for a little boy. You know, ac academic school at the age of five or six, and then it was home for homework. I mean, was it quite a sort of regulated existence?

Ara Darzi6:01

Very, very much so. I mean, there was a huge ethos of education. And I even remember getting some extra classes of French and even writing Armenian at home. It was like writing Chinese letters with your father was an engineer. My father was an engineer and he went to the University of California in Berkeley to study engineering. And uh, you know, we had a reasonable middle class uh upbringing.

Presenter6:12

But your father was an engineer.

Presenter6:22

And they were ambitious for you.

Ara Darzi6:24

They were very ambitious to me, absolutely. I mean, they invested everything they had in the education of.

Ara Darzi6:30

Me and and my sister.

Presenter6:31

And you were comfortable with that, happy to rise to the challenge.

Ara Darzi6:34

I was, yeah, once I realized what the path is, what I have to achieve to get out there, and very early on, I, you know, it was fed to me, you know, my.

Ara Darzi6:42

My exit out of this would be to get the right grades to get into a proper university abroad.

Presenter6:47

What do you mean you exit out of this? I mean the the plan was always to leave, was it?

Ara Darzi6:51

My plan was always to get my higher education abroad, yes.

Presenter6:55

There's a lot to talk about there, and we will in a moment, but I want to to mention I had said in the introduction this brush with death, and that is not actually melodramatic. I mean, you you it was meningitis you had.

Ara Darzi7:06

It was it was I think I I was five. I think it was just f you know, I was four, five, five weeks in school and uh felt extremely unwell.

Presenter7:06

And you

Ara Darzi7:15

Then a pediatrician friend of the family happened to come in, because she heard from my mum that I was unwell. She actually put me in the car and took me straight to hospital, and I had meningococcal meningitis, and uh what I know of it now, one in ten people with meningitis died. So I was very, you know, I was very, very lucky to survive.

Presenter7:34

And what about the indelible mark that it left upon you? Didn't the doctor say to you?

Presenter7:39

That she should have a future in medicine given that medicine had saved your life.

Ara Darzi7:42

Well, it was three weeks in hospital, seeing her on a daily basis and seeing all sorts of other ill patients lying around these wards. I remember her teasing me and saying, Well, we are in the business of saving lives and uh why don't you think about medicine as a career? Because even in those days, you know, the way I was groomed up and brought up was more to think about engineering because of what my dad has done. So that was essentially my introduction into what medicine could do.

Presenter8:10

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Ara Darzi8:12

My next miki music is Mike Oldfields and Tubular Bells and it reminds me of the second decade of my life and it was my first trip to the US and we went to California to see the university that my my dad went to and Tubular Bells was the theme and I remember first exposed to that song was in the US actually visiting the campus.

Presenter9:01

Mike Oldfield and tubular bells and memories there for you of going to uh California and you thought, Yep, this is for me. I want to be here. This is the kind of life I'd like. What was it particularly that appealed to you about that Californian uh campus?

Ara Darzi9:16

Which was amazing. This was Berkeley, and I've done all my reading about it before I went there. It was an amazing campus. I mean, the campus itself, the basketball, the baseball grounds, the American football, huge number of restaurants, you know, McDonald's, all sorts of things.

Presenter9:31

So this was sort of a life in Technicolor, really, compared to the life you'd had?

Ara Darzi9:34

Absolutely. And compared with the school I was in, which was a no different than an old house really with six rooms in it. And I once I did that trip, I was thirteen. I mean, it was quite clear in my mind, that is what I want to do.

Presenter9:47

And what about at home in Baghdad then? That would have been what the mid seventies, the Baath party was was really taking hold. Saddam Hussein not yet in charge, but making his climb up through the ranks of the party. W was it an uncomfortable place to live day to day? W were you aware of that from your parents' point of view?

Ara Darzi10:04

Not at that stage. I don't think he featured very strongly. And I left at 77, 78.

Presenter10:12

So it was seventy-nine when he

Ara Darzi10:13

Yes, but even early on in the eighties it wasn't an issue until I think the first war started and that's the time that even my parents left.

Presenter10:21

And so you left to go to Dublin.

Ara Darzi10:23

Yeah. Why Dublin? We went to Dublin for a number of reasons. Firstly, my parents had friends in Dublin. And more importantly, they felt that it's a much safer environment to have someone at the age of 17 ending up in college there. I think it was about a year earlier that I decided, actually, in fact, I really want to do medicine. And it's interesting, even to this day, I can't remember what made me change my mind. And it could have been the meningitis. Or knowing me now, probably it was something in me that said I want to do something different than my dad did. He took it reasonably well. My mum was even delighted. So I arrived at Dublin at the age of 17. You know, rain, cold, miserable. This is September, October. Yes, you're talking.

Presenter10:24

Why Dublin?

Presenter11:07

Yes, you're talking about the rain. I mean, I I I knew I was talking to you, obviously I looked this up. That six inches of rain falls averagely annually in Baghdad, thirty inches in Dublin.

Ara Darzi11:16

Absolutely, and you are completely different.

Presenter11:20

Tell me then about your next choice.

Ara Darzi11:22

My next choice is a song by The Dubliners on Finnegan's Wake, which reminds me of the many, many nights, enjoyable nights, that I've had in a very specific pub in the West of Ireland called Dirty Nellies.

Speaker 111:35

Freddy's friends assembled at the wake, and Mrs. Finnegan called for lunch.

Speaker 111:40

Well, first she brought some tae and cake, then pipes to back and brandy punch.

Speaker 111:45

Then the widow Malone began to cry. Asked such a lovely calf did you ever see. Must it him aboard, and why did you die? Will you how in your cops' money Magee? Why pull it down with you downstairs around the blow with your toddler's shake? Pleasantly in that outside town, you're lots of fun, that's been a good week. Oh, well Mary Murphy took up the job.

Presenter12:06

The Dubliners and Finnegan's Wake. Ary Darcy, I'm wondering about this boy from Baghdad sitting in dirty nellies sinking the Guinnesses. What a culture shock What a difference

Ara Darzi12:17

I loved it. And immediately I wanted to explore Ireland. And the first thing was: I remember in one of our college pubs where I was told the best-looking Irish girls come from the west of Ireland. So there we were, a few of my mates make ourselves all their way to the west of Ireland, and we came across Dartinellis and we spent that evening there. And this is where I remember the song by the Dubliners there.

Presenter12:38

And what about the girls, that they didn't disappoint?

Ara Darzi12:41

No, they certainly did not. And there was so much to see, there was so much to do. And I developed a a passion to one lake in Ireland, Loch Derg, and I used to go cruising there, sailing there. I loved doing that and stopping into these little towns very, very unique to Ireland, where you know there's about 100, 150 people living there. There's usually two pubs and a small church. That was the idea of the

Presenter13:05

That's about the right ratio, isn't it?

Ara Darzi13:07

Absolutely. And uh, you know, it was completely different to anything I've seen, especially in the West of Ireland.

Presenter13:13

I mean, I notice you've got this beautiful sort of Irish lilt almost running through your accent. You clearly absorbed it. It meant a lot to you.

Ara Darzi13:21

Ah, abs it was, you know, I spent the longest period of li time where I've lived was in Ireland and and I loved it. And, you know, I went to medical school there, I worked there.

Presenter13:30

Yes, let's talk about the work, because the studious boy who spent his whole time doing the school work and the home work suddenly is exposed to a much richer and appealing cultural life, as you describe it. Where did the work fit in? How much work were you doing?

Ara Darzi13:45

Well, college was very different, and the first year was tough, but, you know, I worked it out. Within a year, what I need to do I mean medicine is not a difficult subject.

Ara Darzi13:55

I really enjoyed once I started going to hospitals and seeing patients and communicating with the patients, really seeing what it means to become a doctor.

Presenter14:03

And what about what we call, we used to call, the Troubles? I mean it's very interesting that for you Ireland in the seventies was a a a place of uh freedom, a place of liberation, compared to Baghdad, compared to where you'd come from.

Ara Darzi14:17

Well, for some reason in Ireland it was closer to me. I felt it was closer to me, although there were no troubles in Dublin. But I remember when Lord Matbaton's boat blew, and that was close to me because, you know, I enjoyed being on the river, I enjoyed doing the cruising and the sailing. And I couldn't believe what this is all about. And it was no different, actually, because most of the troubles back in Iraq were between the factions of the Shiites and the Sunnis, which is what you see now on the television. And arriving in Ireland, actually, it was between two factions of Christians. And that had no logic to me. I found that quite challenging.

Presenter14:52

And it was around about this time that you met Wendy. I don't know if you met her in Dirty Nellies. Where did you meet Wendy?

Ara Darzi14:58

No, I met Wendy about a year before I qualified and I met her in the College of Surgeons where I was studying. And her father was dentist who qualified from the college and there was a a black tie do and I met her there and that's where it all started.

Presenter15:12

And she was a young Protestant girl. Did did her religion cause any problems with her with her and you and her dentist father?

Ara Darzi15:19

Not between me and her, but the issue arose about nine years later when when we were getting married, and that was quite interesting. You know, you know, I come from a Russian Orthodox Church, she's from a Protestant, and we had to find a church in Ireland to get married and also to have even the Armenian patriarch to come and give us a blessing. But uh we managed it reasonably well.

Presenter15:38

Love will conquer all. Tell me about your next piece of music then.

Ara Darzi15:41

My next piece of music is Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush, a song which is a sad song but uh reminds me of As After After I Qualified, Don't Give Up.

Speaker 215:52

Don't give up

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You're not me.

Speaker 216:01

Don't give up.

Speaker 216:03

I know you can make it good.

Speaker 216:08

Though I saw it all around.

Speaker 216:11

Never thought that I could be a faint

Speaker 216:16

Thought that we'd be last to go.

Presenter16:20

Peter Gabriel and Kate Bush and Don't Give Up. Now, you said going into that is because it reminds you of your the the beginnings of your medical life. Why why would you have wanted to give up? Why would you have felt that a song like that was important?

Ara Darzi16:33

Well, I qualified in 1984, and it was a big day. It was actually more of a big day for my mum and dad.

Presenter16:35

Um

Ara Darzi16:41

Big graduation day.

Presenter16:43

And and you'd had I mean, you'd done brilliantly in medical school.

Ara Darzi16:47

AI came with a first. I was proud of that. They were very proud that I'd become a doctor. It was the first time they met Wendy. We had a nice big lunch. And then I recognised I've just climbed one ladder and I'm about to start climbing a second ladder, which probably was even more challenging than the first one, which is because I decided at that stage I'm going to become a surgeon. And this songs remind me of that first application. I applied, my first job I applied was to do neurosurgery, which is brain surgery. So I applied for this job and I didn't hear anything. And then I looked into it. The job was shortlisted. I was interviewed and someone else was appointed. I was taken back that I wasn't even given the chance of an interview. And I went to talk to my mentor there, who was the professor of surgery there, who had a huge amount of influence on my life and my career and how it's developed. And he looked into it and he came back to me and he said.

Speaker 117:13

Mm.

Ara Darzi17:39

I mean, to be fair, he was very open. He said they looked at my name and they decided that you probably didn't speak English and I wasn't shortlisted. And I I once I knew that, I was fine about that, because I was more concerned about is this an ability issue? You know, I'm not going to solve the world's problem.

Presenter17:55

You mean you mean the sort of potential cloak to racism of somebody thinking because you're a foreign name, you know?

Ara Darzi17:59

But you can see what I

Ara Darzi18:00

Absolutely. I mean, that was their problem. I was more concerned have I not done enough to achieve what I've achieved? And that was the day that I had to think, well, what do I do next? Do I keep applying for jobs or do I actually head off to the US?

Presenter18:13

So why didn't you do that?

Ara Darzi18:15

Well, I met Wendy in those days and I said, I'm going to give it another go and and interesting enough within within a few months I got the job that I wanted to do and uh and I was back into the system.

Presenter18:23

Now, I I said in the beginning that you were known for being pioneering in the area of keyhole surgery. It wasn't something that you invented, but but how did you begin to learn about it, and what did you do once you had?

Ara Darzi18:36

Surgery in those days was a big cut. The bigger the cut, the matcher the surgeon was. But the challenge then was, could we do this in any way differently? And at the end of my PhD, I came across groups in Europe who were talking about keyhole surgery. And I just happened to be in the right place in Dublin. And I remember with the professor of surgery then and a colleague from Germany who was training in Germany. We did our first keyhole operation on a patient. And that was absolutely striking. Within 24 hours, the patient was out of bed, the patient was eating and drinking. You can see pain-free. And at the same day, we've done an open operation on the patient next door to them. And, you know, it was like choke and cheese.

Presenter19:18

How much did you have to convince the people working around you that this was a path to follow? After all, there were clearly established procedures that had been getting results, maybe not immediate results, but certainly results that meant that patients were eventually better off than they had been?

Ara Darzi19:32

Well

Ara Darzi19:33

At the time, I had all the support I need to get from my boss, who was Professor Batra Hayes, I remember at the time, in Dublin. But I think those challenges started when I moved to England, because that same year I came to London. My boss then, who was the new consultant, I had to convince him that this is the way. And he was very sceptical about it all. This is wrong, this is dangerous. And not just him, actually. There was a significant resistance from the surgical community.

Presenter20:03

How did you get him to listen? W was it just you did you wear him down with your persistence?

Ara Darzi20:07

Yes, and also learning the skill of taking people with you. Ultimately, he was the boss, and he is accountable to the patient, and I managed to convince him, and very gently we spent a couple of hours, we did the operation together, and at the end I could see him, he was excited, and he had to find a way of telling me, actually, I think this might work in selected cases.

Presenter20:28

I think

Ara Darzi20:31

He had

Presenter20:31

He had to find a way so you yes. So in the end you had to convince him that he'd come up with the idea.

Ara Darzi20:37

Absolutely. It's not a trick, but you know, that's the way you bring people with you.

Presenter20:41

It is a trick, but it's a good trick if you can pull it off. Tell me about your next piece of music there.

Ara Darzi20:46

My next piece is the Pink Floyd, another brick in the wall, which reminds me of the sort of towards the end of my postgraduate training in London.

Speaker 220:55

Teacher leave their kids alone.

Speaker 221:02

See that!

Speaker 221:03

Leave them kids alone!

Speaker 221:10

Yeah.

Speaker 221:19

No, you're just a little breaking the wall.

Presenter21:24

Pink Floyd and another brick in the wall. And it's something, Aradazi, that you've been determined not to be. I mean, you work in this huge organisation, the Health Service, that, as we've touched on, can often be bound up with the correct way to do things and the way they've always been done. And yet you have always had the determination and presumably a huge degree of confidence to try to convince people that they don't have to do it that way.

Ara Darzi21:48

Absolutely. I mean, four weeks I convinced the surgeon I was working with that keyhole surge is the worst, and he could recognize this. And I think very quickly we all recognize this is the tip of the iceberg. This had a huge impact on patients' recovery and well-being. So we had to maintain the momentum. And I remember doing then the first cancer operation in this hospital, and he was extremely supportive in getting me to do this until about six months into it, and I received this fascinating phone call from the medical director of the hospital.

Presenter22:19

Yes, what about this? Before you is this right, before you'd even finished your training, you were invited to become a consultant.

Ara Darzi22:26

Yes, I mean, I didn't know this. I got a phone call from the medical director, and usually the medical director calls in for two reasons. Either you've done something seriously wrong with a patient or you've had a complaint from a nurse. And he was very charming. He was actually from Cork. He spent ten minutes telling me how excited he is in what we're doing in Keyhole Surgery. And, you know, we put his hospital on the map. He's the top doc now, this guy. And turned around and said, I want to appoint you as a consultant surgeon in this hospital. And again, I just didn't know what to make out of this because I was 30 and a half, just approaching 31.

Speaker 223:00

Uh

Presenter23:00

How old were you?

Presenter23:04

A consultant typically would be how old?

Ara Darzi23:07

Uh I mean in those days you're probably saying sort of late thirties, even early forties.

Presenter23:12

And you haven't even completed your training?

Ara Darzi23:14

I had another year to go, and that was the dilemma whether I take this job or not. And in actual fact, I came back and I said I will finish my training before I take the job. And they were very good, because they waited for another year or eighteen months where I went back to St Mary's as a trainee and then came back as a consultant.

Presenter23:31

But people are often uncomfortable with change. How much resistance have you encountered throughout your years of of trying to move things forward, of moving things forward very successfully indeed?

Ara Darzi23:40

I've had that throughout my career as a surgeon, and I think at the end of the day, you always come back to the basics, and that's the way I drive it. I look at the evidence.

Ara Darzi23:49

Very important.

Ara Darzi23:50

You have to have the determination and you have to have the courage. You know, on a racing track, you look forward, you don't actually look side to side, and you take people with you. You try your best to take people with you. In any community, there are loggers, and they will eventually catch up with you.

Presenter24:04

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Ara Darzi24:06

The next one uh is uses mature which seven seconds with Nina Sherry, which reminds me of uh of the time of uh my marriage and also the birth of our two children, Freddie and Nina. And it was a very touching song and I I loved it and I've continued to listen to it.

Presenter24:23

And Freddie had a a difficult time coming into the world. He and he and Wendy w especially it wasn't easy for Wendy. What happened?

Ara Darzi24:29

Freddie was born through a cesarean section, and I remember Wendy had her cesarean section and.

Ara Darzi24:36

I had actually a list to do, so I went back to do my operating list and I came back at midday. And when I came back at midday, she looked shocked, shocked meaning that she looked very pale, very white, her blood pressure was dropping. And I could recognize something is wrong here. And you know, you have to manage these things very delicately because you don't want to interfere in the care of your own family. But at the end of the day, she had quite a significant, what we call a postpartum hemorrhage, which could be life-threatening. But she, thank goodness, she got through that and she was fine.

Speaker 124:40

And

Speaker 225:06

When a child is born

Speaker 225:09

Into this world, it has no concept.

Speaker 225:14

Oh the tone the skin is living in It's not a second or seven seconds away

Speaker 225:22

Useless long is our stay

Speaker 225:26

I'll be waiting

Speaker 225:30

It's not a second, we're seven seconds away.

Presenter25:35

Yosun Door and Naina Cherry, and seven seconds, to remind you of the not always straightforward births of your two children, Freddie and Nina.

Presenter25:44

As you've been pursuing this incredible stellar path of a career that you have through the NHS, of course, they've been born, they've been brought up.

Presenter25:52

Has Dad been around much?

Ara Darzi25:55

Yeah, well, I I'm sure I c I'm sure if you asked Wendy that question, she would have said he could have done better. But uh the answer to that is I've tried my best to be there as much as possible and I made a you know, every weekend we are together. During the week it's much more challenging because the the workload I have, but certainly every Saturday, Sunday I used to certainly in their earlier days spend time with them.

Presenter26:17

So through your NHS work, of course, then you've had this incredible demand on your time, trying to incorporate it with the family. And then you get this call, as you've described it, pretty much out of the blue, from the Prime Minister, and he asked you to take a central role in forming the future of the NHS. It's about to celebrate its sixtieth birthday. I mean, even for somebody like you, it it must seem like a huge and at sometimes sometimes an intimidating task.

Ara Darzi26:44

I genuinely felt he wanted a clinician to lead a review for the NHS. I, without breaking any confidence, I mean I tried my best to convince him I'm happy to do that as an adviser rather than as a minister. The idea of becoming a minister and being accountable in Parliament was very, very you know, that's a big thing, and I you could never take that lightly. And that is what really I mean, I had sleepless nights thinking about this for a few days.

Presenter27:10

And of course, you have come under criticism inevitably because you are now aligned with a party. You are a Labour Health Minister in the Lords, and I have heard.

Presenter27:19

opposition politicians say, well, it's just a sham what this Lord Darcy's doing. I mean, you you can't really have ever come up against that kind of blatant disregard and criticism in your NHS career.

Ara Darzi27:31

I I criticism I don't I don't mind critic I mean opposition parties are there, obviously. They have a very important role to play in criticize what the government is doing.

Presenter27:34

Do you really don't mind that?

Ara Darzi27:41

And I have no problem with that. I expect, though, you can actually come up with a better policy, and I'm yet to see that. So I don't really see any issues with that. At the end of the day, it comes back to the same principles. If you have the evidence,

Ara Darzi27:55

If you have the determination, if you have the courage to put it through, and doing this review at a local level, carrying more than 2,000 clinicians, doctors, nurses across the country, meeting with the patients and the public at a local level to make change happen. You know, I've been in Whitehall for 11 months now, and I could tell you, I have all the evidence that no change could happen from Whitehall. The change has to happen locally. If I want to make a change in my practice, it's done in St. Mary's Hospital on the shop floor with the nurses and other doctors. You know, all of us come to work not just to deliver healthcare. We come to work because we want to get better. We want to deliver a better healthcare. And we need to keep up with the expectations of the public. We need to have the patients. We need to have a higher regard to patient experience.

Presenter28:42

Tell me about your next piece of music, then.

Ara Darzi28:44

The next piece is Jerusalem, the soundtrack from the Charles of Fire, which reminds me actually back to

Ara Darzi28:51

1994 where I had to make another decision, which is to move from Centre Middlesex, where I was appointed into St Mary's. You know, the bit about Charits of Fire is that we also had one very distinguished neurologist, Sir Roger Bannister, and his contribution also both the the neurological field, but more importantly his contribution to sports in St Marys.

Presenter29:42

The Ambrosian Singers in Jerusalem, from the soundtrack to Chariots of Fire. So, Aradharzi, you carry out surgery at St. Mary's and the Royal Marsden, you hold professorships, you continue to have this pioneering and extraordinary career in the NHS.

Presenter29:58

I wonder what your parent your parents live in London now.

Ara Darzi30:01

They do ya.

Presenter30:02

Are they proud of their boy?

Ara Darzi30:04

Um they are. They've been uh yeah, they've been I suppose you should ask them that question, but what I see from every time I see my mum, she is proud, yeah.

Presenter30:12

Would your dad still rather you are an engineer?

Ara Darzi30:15

I don't believe so. I think he he He's got over it, has he? Well, he got over it actually. Uh I was very lucky to be given an honorary fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering, which was what a great privilege to be given that. And uh and it that put a few smiles on his face.

Presenter30:25

You know what?

Presenter30:30

And in the Lords, too, then, uh on one occasion you were you were called to bring in more than your debating skills into the House of Lords. Can you tell us about that?

Ara Darzi30:39

Yes, I can. It was I was doing this bill, which was quite a controversial bill, but the human fertilization and embryology bill, which was recently debated in the House of Commons, and about eight o'clock, Lord Brennan stood up and spoke. He was a senior judge.

Presenter30:45

That's the human fertilization.

Ara Darzi30:57

most eloquently. He was just fantastic in the way he spoke. And but, you know, having a serious go at the bill and what I've said in my opening speech, he sat down and then I remember Baroness Paisley stood up to say a few things. And suddenly from you know, I could see from the corner of my eye, Lord Brennan was not very well and he sort of collapsed and

Ara Darzi31:18

You just forget where you are. So I started getting up the benches and going and seeing what's happening and ended up doing a mouth-to-mouth and a heart massage to see whether I get him back. And that went all around at six minutes and I wasn't getting anywhere. And there were a couple of my senior colleagues, some retired clinicians in the house, which came in also to give some advice, which I was pleased by. And eventually I asked for a defibrillator, which is the thing that shocks the heart. And I shocked him in the chamber. And I got him back. As I was shocking him, I also saw the Archbishop of York doing his prayers, and I shocked him. And I got him back, and I could see life coming back to Lord Brown. And I tell you, that's the most gratifying thing you do in medicine. But, you know, that is what every NHS employee does every day. It just happened to be in the chamber that attracted some interest.

Ara Darzi32:07

Tell me

Presenter32:07

But your final record.

Ara Darzi32:09

My next piece of music is uh is Supertramp and the Logical Song.

Presenter32:14

And why have you chosen this?

Ara Darzi32:16

I love the the lyrics in this, the words, and it just reminds me of my early days being sent out to be educated, to be if you can hear the words, of being more sensible and more logical. And at the same time also reminds you that as you grow up in life you need to be careful in what you say and how to bring people with you, otherwise you might be accused of being

Ara Darzi32:34

fanatical or even cynical.

Speaker 232:37

But then they sent me away to teach me how to be sensible.

Speaker 232:42

Logical, oh responsible, practical And then they show me a world where I could be so defendable

Speaker 232:53

Oh clinical, oh intellectual cynical.

Speaker 232:58

Oh, tanky, tanky, tanky, yeah.

Presenter33:04

Super tramp and the logical song. So, I will give you the Bible, and I'll give you the complete works of Shakespeare, and you can choose a book to take. What would you like to take?

Ara Darzi33:13

I'm going to take Yes, Minister, to further demystify civil service and know a bit more about it.

Presenter33:20

Good luck with that.

Ara Darzi33:21

At the lowest

Presenter33:22

The

Ara Darzi33:22

Yeah.

Presenter33:22

Actually.

Ara Darzi33:23

I will take a pencil and a paper, and the reason for that is I'm constantly thinking what I could do better, and I would like to put my thoughts on paper.

Presenter33:31

I'll give you a sharpener for the pencil if that makes life a little easier. And if you could save just one of these eight records, which one would it be?

Ara Darzi33:40

Uh I'll pick the one that reminds me of the kids, which is uh the seven seconds.

Presenter33:44

Ara Darzee, Lord Darcy, thank you very much for letting us hear your desert island discs.

Ara Darzi33:48

Thank you.

Presenter33:55

You've been listening to a podcast from the Desert Island Discs Archive. For more podcasts, please visit bbc.co.uk/slash radio four.