Professor Noel Fitzpatrick

Presenter0:01

BBC Sounds, Music, Radio Podcasts. Hello, I'm Lauren Laverne and this is the Desert Island Discs podcast. Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them if they were cast away to a desert island. And for rights reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast. I hope you enjoy listening.

Presenter0:37

My castaway this week is the veterinary surgeon Professor Noel Fitzpatrick.

Presenter0:42

Many children invent superhero aliases, very few grow up to see their daydreams come true. This T V Super Vet is one who did. As a child, he'd spend stolen hours on the family farm in rural Ireland imagining himself as Vetman, a crusading hero who used bionics to rebuild sick and injured animals. Forty years later, he has earned a place in the Guinness Book of World Records for his groundbreaking work with animals, including fitting the world's first bionic leg on a dog.

Presenter1:13

Success hasn't come easy, and his revolutionary practices have their critics. His fans, however, can't get enough. His work has been chronicled in fifteen series and counting of Channel 4's prime time hit, The Super Vet, spawned two successful books, a stadium tour, and clients including Meghan Markle's Dog Guy and Russell Brand's Cat Morrissey. For him, however, the status of the animal's owner is irrelevant. He says, It's a vocation. I've never done a day's work in my life. I've just got up and done what I love to do. It's about making the world a better place, one dog at a time.

Presenter1:51

Professor Noel FitzPatrick, welcome to Desert Island Discs.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick1:55

Thank you and the team for having me on.

Presenter1:57

Well, we're delighted to have you, Noel. Now you might not describe what you do as work, but you do freely admit to being a workaholic, and I know that you put in some punishing hours and you're often getting by on just a couple of hours' sleep. Where does your extraordinary drive come from?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick2:12

I don't advocate workaholism as a way of life. I mean, I d I'm not saying that that's a good idea, but I just never think really beyond the next patient and the next family that I'm seeing.

Presenter2:27

Do you still sleep in your office during the week?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick2:33

As do my two cats, Excalibur and Ricochet, and my dog Kira, it's a happy little family.

Presenter2:39

Noel, I know you're very passionate about the concept of one medicine, and that encourages collaboration between the medical and veterinary professions for the benefit of both humans and animals. What drew you to this idea in the first place?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick2:53

It's better as a model, in my opinion, to study naturally occurring disease in dogs and cats and humans at the same time, as you will have to do with coronavirus and as, in my opinion, you should do with cancer, rather than injecting it into an animal and then studying the effects. And secondly, if you develop intellectual property as a result of that, why don't you share it with the animals?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick3:16

I donated my intellectual property for the limb amputation prosthesis to the human field, and we still don't have a man and a dog walking down a beach hand in paw with the same technology. That would be a beach of one medicine, and that's the beach I'd like to wash up on.

Presenter3:35

This brings us to your first track then, Noel, and I think I might have an idea of why you've chosen it.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick3:41

It's the best song ever written on Planet Earth, of course, by the greatest uh lead man uh and uh singer that ever existed on planet earth, of course, who happens to be Irish. And uh and he's botto. And in the early years when I was studying in those um in those years I had the album, the only album I had on vinyl and I broke the record player and the needles, so I was basically just playing

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick4:06

for night after night.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick4:09

The lyrics of it are the thing because Bono says, and he's very specific about this. He says, We're not the same. We get to carry each other. And in this era of COVID, we have no choice but to help one another. It's not an obligation, it's a privilege because love will indeed leave you if you don't care for it. And that's what one is about.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick4:35

Or leave a bad taste in your mouth

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick4:41

You act like you never had the

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick4:46

You want me to go with that?

Speaker 44:48

Now will it's too late?

Speaker 44:54

Tonight.

Speaker 14:56

Uh

Speaker 44:56

See you.

Speaker 14:57

I will pass out into the light

Speaker 15:01

We're one Uh

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick5:04

Not the same, we get to carry each other.

Presenter5:09

You two and one. Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, as well as your scientific expertise, you do have other talents. I know that when you were in your twenties you went to drama school. Why was it important to you to have that artistic outlet?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick5:25

Einstein said, one of the greatest scientists of all time said, you cannot feel the meaning of life by trying to rationalize it in the mind.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick5:34

You can only feel it.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick5:37

And I went to drama school because I had studied so hard for many years and I had realized that science was just a blink, just our rationalization at that moment in time, but art transcended all of that.

Presenter5:54

Your first gig then after drama school was in the police drama The Bill. What part did you play?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick5:59

I was cast as a shady dog dealer on the bill, setting people up with Gammy Racing dogs. Then I went for an interview with Heartbeat, which you will well remember, Staple on Sunday nights, right? And I was a shady poisoner of crows as a kick a sidekick to Greengrass.

Presenter6:18

Thank you.

Presenter6:19

Not a crow poisoner.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick6:20

Oh man, my my early acting career really wasn't good for the veterinary community. And then lastly, the final nail in the coffin, I was up uh for uh Bally Kiss Angel, which uh uh a little known actor called Colin Farrell uh actually got. I don't know if you've ever heard of him. But anyway

Presenter6:36

But anyway, I've been passing.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick6:38

Yeah.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick6:39

Look at how life changes. Look at how life changes. But I had great fun and I really, really enjoyed understanding how to translate that essence. And that's what drama school taught me.

Presenter6:52

Time for your next disc null, and this one takes you back to a rock concert at Slane Castle in Ireland, and a performer who I know had a huge effect on you. What are your memories of that day?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:03

I stood there, mud covered, as Susannah Hoffs from the Bangles belted it out, and I was in love with Susannah Hoffs. And then Chris Rhea came on, and then

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:14

A skinny bloke in a white tracksuit with red stripes down it.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:19

With a crown on came out of a puff of smoke to the ethereal.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:26

Opening of one vision. And that blew my mind. Because Freddie Mercury.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:34

Was able to translate emotion.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:37

Like nobody else I've ever seen, just by existing.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:42

And he wrote the greatest love song, well, in my life anyway, and it's called Love of My Life. And for me, it's all about unconditional love,'cause Freddie didn't

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:53

Think about really when he was writing this sexuality because remember.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick7:58

He had a a girl and a boy, and and I never think that dogs and cats judge you. They don't care what sexuality you are, what color you are, what creed you are, what religion you are, what race you are. And in that moment in nineteen eighty six, I thought, wow

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick8:15

That's it.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick8:16

And that's what I'm gonna do with my life.

Speaker 18:18

Love of my lies, you've hurt me

Speaker 18:25

Broken my heart

Speaker 18:28

Now you leave me.

Speaker 18:31

Uh

Speaker 48:31

Love of my life, can't you see great?

Speaker 18:38

Bring it back, bring it back.

Speaker 18:41

Don't take it away from me because you don't know what it means to

Presenter8:51

Queen and love of my life. So, Noel Fitzpatrick, you were born in Ballyfin, County Leash, one of six children. Your father, Sean, was a farmer, and I think he is where you might have inherited your work ethic from.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick9:06

A hundred percent. Daddy never considered farming work.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick9:11

It's like anything else that diverged from that was it was an anathema to him. I remember when I was a I think I was like ten and I asked him for a guitar and he gave me a saw.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick9:28

To saw the horns off a bullock. Because that's how we rolled back then. And when I was eight, you know, I was wandering out in the fields counting sheep, making sure there wasn't one down in the train trying to have a lamb. And he would do the morning shift. And that's really how I fell in love with animals. I used to just talk to them. I would sit in the field and talk to them. In fact.

Presenter9:51

And we weren't scared late at night at that age.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick9:54

There was nobody around, Lauren. He's in the middle of nowhere. Well, there was a moment that changed my life, when I was scared, but not of a human. I was doing the night shift.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:03

And uh I went out, counted the sheep, and there was one missing. Turned out she was down in a drain, which is a a trough of water around the periphery of the field, and she was trying to push out a lamb, and I got I clambered down the side of the drain and pulled that lamb out, and it was dead.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:20

Daddy always said, put your hand in and try and look for another. So I did, and there was a live lamb in there, and I got it out under the water surface, it was freezing cold, got it up the side of the bank, and pumped life back into its chest. And then as I was I coaxed the sheep back out of the drain, and as I was walking back up the field, I slipped on the ice and the lamb just flung out in front of me and

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:44

And j and died.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:47

And I just lay there.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:49

looking up at heaven and all the stars in heaven and

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:53

I felt worthless and meaningless and useless, and I wished

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick10:57

With all my might, that I could be strong enough, that I could be brave enough.

Presenter11:01

You were so young, Noel, and obviously you really wanted your dad's approval then.

Presenter11:07

Were the two of you close?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick11:08

He was a great man in many ways, but he was never one to say.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick11:14

You did all right there, or to concentrate on anything material. I remember he only ever actually.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick11:21

gave me one thing, material, in my whole life. I I I'll remember it forever. He it was my birthday and he he walked in with a box with a Timex watch in it and he just gave it to me and he said

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick11:36

Just use your time wisely. And that was the thing about him, you know, he would say the most profound things. Having said that,

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick11:45

He was a man of few words. And it wasn't until I left home, went to made my home in Great Britain, and before he died, that I really asked him some big questions and we bonded a little bit. I feel sad though, because we never really had the chat, you know. We never really had the what's this all about, daddy chat?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick12:10

Anyway.

Presenter12:12

But it sounds like he knew you loved him.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick12:15

Oh, I think

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick12:16

Yeah.

Presenter12:18

Meanwhile, of course, your mum, Rita, was bringing up six of you, six kids, on a farm. What kind of sacrifices did she have to make? That can be a tough life.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick12:27

She never had something that she organized, like a social event or something like that, that that she ever actually thought she was gonna go to,'cause daddy would always be late, or there would always be a cow calving, or there'll be something else going on. So I think her life was filled with little disappointments which she dealt with so gracefully.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick12:47

She's ninety two now, and I'm immensely grateful to my mammy because one Saturday night when I was studying really hard and she w felt like saying, I'll burn those bloody books if you don't go to bed.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick12:58

She helped me to look up a big word in a dictionary which I have today.

Presenter13:02

What was the big word?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:04

Anamatapaya, my God And she believed in me, you know, sh she she would never say

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:10

You're not capable of something or that's not your station in life. She allowed me to dream, my mommy did.

Presenter13:18

Noel, it's time for your next disc, which I think relates to your childhood. What are we going to hear?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:23

This is nineteen seventy one.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:25

And uh I had no radio, but I found one on a scrap heap.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:30

And uh I I made an aerial out of a coat hanger and stuck it in the in the radio, an old Sony radio. And this sound

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:39

came from a pirate radio station called Radio Luxembourg.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:44

And it was Led Zeppelin's Stairway to Heaven. It was Jimmy Page and Robert Plant and John Paul Jones, people I'd never heard of. These were like angels that had transcended with mellifluous words from heaven.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick13:57

and had built a stairway to it and in all of its glorious eight minutes I would just lie on my back and dream that that stairway to heaven existed and that one day I would walk on it and it would bring me to a place of love.

Speaker 114:15

There's a lady ashore

Speaker 114:19

All it glitters is gold, and she's buying the stairway to heal.

Speaker 114:28

When she gets there she knows.

Speaker 114:32

If the stores are all closed, with a word she can get what she

Presenter14:42

Stairway to Heaven, Led Zeppelin. Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, you attended a Catholic boarding school. They had an obligation to take a certain amount of local boys as day pupils, and you were one. And I know you had a difficult time there. You were out of your depth. I mean, what were you dealing with?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick14:59

I guess at the beginning, I just want to emphasize that, mommy, this isn't your fault.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:05

This wasn't your doing and you did your best, and daddy the same. But

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:10

In the end I didn't care about the punches and the kicks and the...

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:15

Pulling up on my underpants. I never had any underpants elastic left. I didn't care about any of the physical violence of being thrown in the quarry and being covered in bruises and my bike being broken up.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:26

What I cared about was the only thing that mattered to me.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:31

And they found out what that was. And that was my my copy book.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:37

And uh they poured milk over it. They destroyed the only thing that mattered to me and that was the creation of

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:47

My thoughts, I guess, in a physical form?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick15:51

I realized at that moment that I ought not to get attached to anything physical, and the only thing that I could impart was something that could be felt. And if I do anything in my life, maybe I can make people realize that in that moment of beauty that you share with an animal that doesn't judge you, you don't need a copy book, and it doesn't matter who hits you in the face, because that love transcends all of that.

Presenter16:18

So Noel, to get through what must have been a hugely traumatic time, you will go away and make up stories about this character, Vantman, a superhero that you'd created in your imagination, and he could save every unwanted injured animal.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick16:35

Wehman could do anything. He could rebuild the shell of a tortoise with a wheelbarrow and put rocket launchers onto the handles so the tortoise could fly. And he would marry all the animals that were thrown away and all the things that were thrown away and show everybody that we could be so much better if we didn't throw everything away. And sometimes the things we throw away are the most valuable, but we don't realize that till it's gone.

Presenter17:02

You also had Pirate the Sheep Dog, to give you some comfort. What was he like?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:07

He was an animal on the farm that was there for a functional reason and to me he was my best friend.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:13

I'd say, well, I have no underpants elastic, Pirate.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:17

You mean who are you going to tell that to?

Presenter17:19

Hmm.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:19

You tell him, or today I'm afraid, Pirate.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:23

I can't sleep tonight, pirate, and I owe him so, so much.

Presenter17:29

Noel, let's take a break for some music. It's your fourth disc today. What are we going to hear and why are you taking it with you to the island?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:36

The reason I've chosen this song by Thin Lizzy.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick17:40

It has lyrics in it that are really, really important to me and have been really important all my life because I get a lot of criticism from other vets about what I do and maybe we'll talk about that. But there's a line in the song that says there are people that will investigate you, they'll insinuate, intimidate and complicate you. But don't let them break you because you can do anything you want to do.

Speaker 418:17

There are people that will investigate you.

Speaker 118:19

Uh

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick18:20

Uh

Speaker 418:20

Uh

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick18:20

Lemon f Insinuate, intimidate, and complicate you Don't ever wait or hesitate to State the fate that awaits those who

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick18:30

Try to shake or take you, don't let them break you.

Presenter18:36

Thin Lizzie, and do anything you want to. Noel Fitzpatrick, you graduated from veterinary school in nineteen ninety and you got a job as a country vet dealing with farm animals. What did you learn from doing that kind of work?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick18:49

This ability to be in the moment with the cow, the sheep, the horse, the pig, the dog, the cat, whatever the animal may be, and interpret the clinical signs without the need for an MRI scan, a CT scan, all that stuff that that supervet fella puts on television. I mean, my goodness, can he not just take out a thermometer and do the decent thing?

Presenter19:10

Yeah.

Presenter19:11

And you also learned, of course, the gift of improvisation. I know that one of your first grateful patients was a sheepdog with a broken femur. What did you do to help?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick19:19

What a

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick19:21

Oh my goodness, one of the greatest lessons of my life. So this was the dog of a farmer called Larry. And Larry used to wash his clothes in the rain barrel at the end of his cottage. And there was no running water, there was no electricity. Larry thought I could do anything because I dehorned all his bullocks. And as I was leaving, he said, Ah, you'll have a look at the old dog. So the dog was the farm dog limping around the yard with a broken femur. And I'm in the middle of nowhere. I popped the dog up on his kitchen table and I made a splint out of a bit of wire and some felt. And then when I saw the dog walking around the yard, Larry said the most profound thing to me. We're standing there watching the impossible happen when the dog with the broken femur, which the cow had kicked, he's walking across the yard absolutely fine after my rudimentary splint had healed it. And he goes, Ah, there you go now. Sure, everything is impossible.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick20:24

Until it happens.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick20:27

Ain't that the truth?

Presenter20:29

I think we'd better have some more music no. Number five, what have you got?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick20:33

My next track

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick20:35

Is from one of the most underrated British bands of all time.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick20:39

They are the pesch mode and the song is called Try Walking in My Shoes and the reason that it's so important to me is that when I was trying to pitch the Super Vet TV show, nobody wanted it. I'd done the Bionic Vet for the BBC, it was not commissioned again, I couldn't get a show. And I wrote to Nat Geo in America, National Geographic, and they decided they'd give me a shot.

Presenter21:00

Yes, and you're such a big Depeche Mode fan that you decided that you would do the pitch from the same hotel room in Los Angeles where Depeche Mode's Dave Gahan, thankfully, survived an accidental drug overdose. What was the thinking? Why did you want to do it there?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick21:17

I figured if Dave Gahan can survive that hotel room, I could surely survive doing the first pitch for the Super Vet T V show in that same room.

Speaker 121:25

I would say by the things that put me through, The pain I've been subjected to.

Speaker 121:31

The Lord Himself oh

Speaker 121:33

Uh

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick21:33

Uh

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick21:35

The countless beasts laid at my feet Forbidden fruits for me to eat But I think your pulse would start to rush

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick21:46

Now I'm not looking for

Speaker 121:49

That's evolution

Speaker 121:52

Forgiveness for the things I did.

Presenter21:57

Depeche Mode and Walking In My Shoes. Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, you started working in England in the early 90s, setting up your first referral practice in Surrey in 1997, and one of your early successes was an operation to implant a bionic limb in a dog called Storm. What did the surgery involve?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick22:17

That day with Storm, I was in what can only be described as a hut in the woods, an old army barracks in the middle of a woods, and everybody said, Well, you should just chop the leg off. Well, that wasn't ideal for Storm for various reasons. So we developed this implant based on a CT scan, we designed it, and we put it in the limb.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick22:42

The bone grew in, the skin grew in, and storm ran around the field.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick22:47

And in that moment, of course, everything becomes possible, to echo the words of Larry.

Presenter22:53

How did it feel to watch him recover?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick22:56

Nervous because it's the first time, but

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick23:02

It's just wonderful when you can restore fully functional quality of life in an ethically robust environment, and most importantly for me that you give the family the choice.

Presenter23:14

You said you were nervous, you know, I mean and you must have been nervous before the surgery. Do you tend to feel like that before you go into do an operation?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick23:23

Uh not so much any more, because otherwise I wouldn't be able to do it. I recently had to operate on my own dog, Kira, after her accident, and I was probably more nervous then than I've been for twenty years.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick23:37

But it isn't so much nerves as knowing that I could fail and accepting that that's part of the journey. And as long as the family's on that journey with you and you've discussed the ethics with them,

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick23:50

then I don't think nerves really help. And once you blow the doors of the theater open, usually with your foot, and you walk in, somehow any mist you may have had evaporates and somehow it's a magical thing. You pick up that scalpel blade, you become

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick24:11

The person who's going to save the world.

Presenter24:13

Noel, it's time for your next disc. What are we going to hear?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick24:17

Well, I've chosen Ruby Tuesday because Keith Richards is immortal and Mick Jagger will be the most unnervous front man that you could ever meet. So we should all try and emulate him. But most importantly, I picked Ruby Tuesday because there's a line in there about losing your dreams and you lose everything. And that's really important to me because if you lose your dreams, you lose your mind.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick24:58

Still I'm gonna be

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick25:04

There's no time to live.

Speaker 125:07

I heard her say

Presenter25:13

Catch your dreams before they slip away.

Presenter25:20

Ruby Tuesday, The Rolling Stones. Noel Fitzpatrick, you certainly don't shy away from the tragedies that you deal with as part of your job on a day-to-day basis. A case in point is the story of a young tortoise called Hermes. Now, three of his legs had been eaten by rats when he was in hibernation, and he really came to you in a very sorry state. What informed your decision to operate?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick25:44

What was going through my head was

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick25:46

Is it ethical to try and save this animal's life, even if it is possible?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick25:52

Just because something's possible doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick25:56

Anyway, having taken all of that advice and gone through

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick26:00

Well, dozens of hours of planning.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick26:03

We set out to take off the infected portions of the limbs, and subsequently we did implant three bionic limbs, as we just alluded to with Storm, which were actually working very well when, unfortunately, Hermes the tortoise had a probable gastroenteric problem and died. But that was

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick26:23

well after what I had done.

Presenter26:25

That was two months later.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick26:26

Yes. And we were very transparent about that on the television show.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick26:32

But a number of veterinarians complained to my governing body, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons, that I was guilty of malpractice. I have no acrimony against them. They're trying to do the right thing. They're trying to look after the welfare of the animal as they see it. But in this case, they felt that I didn't

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick26:51

Look after the ethical welfare of Hermes enough, and they wouldn't have done it. They would not have offered this option to Hermes.

Presenter26:59

What was the emotional toll of that for you, of your moral and ethical values, which you quite clearly care so passionately about, being questioned?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick27:10

I was suicidal.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick27:13

Yeah, that's the nuts and bolts of it.

Presenter27:16

What got you through that time? It must have been incredibly difficult.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick27:23

My girlfriend's been great. My dog Kira has been great. Ricochet, my cat, came into our cat came into my life at that time. And since then, Excalibur, another cat.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick27:35

Ricochet reached down with his big black paw and pulled me out of my misery and told me, Daddy, it's okay.

Presenter27:42

After fourteen months null, the Royal College of Veterinary Surgeons concluded that euthanasia should have been recommended for Hermes, but you were cleared of serious malpractice. What helped you get back on track once that experience was behind you?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick27:56

Gone.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick27:57

to treat another patient every day.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick28:00

The wonderful people who were around me from a legal point of view kept saying to me, Just go and save the next one.

Presenter28:06

Noel, it's time for your next piece of music. What are we going to hear, and why?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick28:10

Uprising has lyrics in it and as you'll know by now I'm really uh attracted to lyrics and and they say that they'll try and push drugs and keep us all dumbed down and as Matthew Bellamy says in this song. And I would encourage all medicine, human and animal, to look beyond profit and look towards the patient.

Speaker 128:27

Paninoia is in bloom The PR transmissions will resume I try to push try to keep us all down and hold her But we will never see the truth around Another promise, another scene Another A package light to keep us trapped in real A green belts wrapped around our minds An endless red tape to keep the truth confined

Presenter28:58

Muse and Uprising. Professor Noel FitzPatrick, last year you had an awful accident. You fell down the stairs, half asleep, go to the Loo in the middle of the night. You broke your neck. Now I'm pleased to say you're fully recovered today, but I know that you spent weeks in a neck brace and were virtually immobile.

Presenter29:17

That must have been a cue to take stock of your life.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick29:20

Yes. Yeah, it did. Sitting there looking up at the ceiling, you stop taking for granted the things that really matter, your friends and the love in your life. And and that's what it did for me.

Presenter29:35

As we said at the beginning of the programme, Noel, you're a self confessed workaholic. Have you made personal sacrifices to get where you are today? You mentioned friends and the love in your life.

Presenter29:45

How do you balance that when you're working the hours that you have often worked or habitually worked all your life?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick29:52

I'm a nightmare, Lauren.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick29:56

Oh my goodness. Yeah. From the point of view of my personal life going forward, I'm fifty three, so if I want to have kids, I need to think about that. If I want to have some some work life balance, I need to think about that. These are big questions and

Presenter30:14

Do you want those things?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick30:16

Yeah, yeah, I think so. God bless my girlfriend and um we'll see what happens. But

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick30:25

I just hope that it'll all work out in the end if I keep doing the right thing. That's it.

Presenter30:31

I'm about to cast you away. Now, Noel, you once said I never give my mind space or time to heal and be at rest. Do you think you might be able to do that on the island?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick30:43

Definitely, definitely. I am so excited about going to the island. I get to spend some time thinking and some time to reflect and some time to

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick30:57

Be at one with the universe without the stress of the hundred emails that have come in while I've been talking to you and the next 10 patients that need my help.

Presenter31:07

And who do you think you'll miss most? The animals in your life or the people?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:11

Oh, gosh.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:13

Don't tell any of my friends, Lauren, but it's always going to be the animals.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:18

Yeah. Yeah. Anyone?

Presenter31:19

Don't worry.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:19

Uh

Presenter31:21

One more disc before you go then, Professor Noel Fitzpatrick. What are we going to hear?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:26

I wanted to combine symphony

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:28

And heavy metal.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:32

And it's a beautiful song because when James Hetfield wrote it, and in fact, interestingly, he plays the solo rather than Kirk Hammett.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:42

Or this only track

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:43

And he wrote it about a girlfriend when he was away on the road, and it goes like, life is ours, we live it our way. All these words I don't just say, and nothing else matters.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick31:53

He was looking for trust and he found it in her. And so for me, what it means is that if medicine opened its mind to a different view, nothing else matters. If you can find trust and not follow the herd and do the right thing, nothing else matters.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick32:10

So close, no matter how far

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick32:15

Could be much off

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick32:20

Forever trusted who we are And nothing else matters

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick32:31

Never opened myself this way

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick32:36

Life is ours, we live it our way

Presenter32:40

Nothing Else Matters Metallica, but the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Edwin Outwater. Noel FitzPatrick, it's time then for me to cast you away. I can give you the Bible, the complete works of Shakspere, and you can take another book of your choosing.

Presenter32:56

What will he go for?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick32:57

It's going to be the poems and letters of Oscar Wilde, and the most beautiful thing he ever wrote was the last four lines of a poem to his wife, and he said When wind and winter harden All the loveless land, it will whisper of a garden.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick33:11

That only you will understand.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick33:13

And I want that with me for eternity.

Presenter33:16

You can also have a luxury item. What would you like?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick33:19

I am going to bring a guitar because I have tried so many times to learn guitar and I think all five previous guitar teachers have either left the country or certainly left my practice at 10 p.m. when the lesson was supposed to be at 9. So God bless them all. On the island I'm going to practice guitar.

Presenter33:39

And finally, which of these eight tracks would you rush to save if you could only grab one and rescue it from the waves?

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick33:46

A no brainer, one by you two. It represents the one medicine we need to embrace for all animals and humans to be at one, and the one race, the one creed, the one color, the one religion, whatever it is.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick33:59

Oneness is where it's at.

Presenter34:01

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick, thank you so much for sharing your desert island discs with us.

Professor Noel Fitzpatrick34:06

My entire pleasure. Thank you.

Presenter34:18

I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Noel. We have cast many animal lovers away, including the vet Bruce Fogel, writer James Herriot, racehorse trainer Jenny Pittman and Claire Horton, former chief executive of Battersea Dogs and Cats Home. You can find their episodes in our Desert Island Discs programme archive and through BBC Sounds. Next time, my guest will be the Olympic gold medalist Dame Jessica Ennis Hill. I do hope you'll join us.

Presenter34:56

Hello, I'm Pandora Sykes and just before you go I wanted to tell you about a new podcast, Pieces of Britney, my attempt to piece together the life of Britney Spears and the forces that have forged it.

Speaker 435:07

A huge fan, yeah, absolutely. A fan of not just the performer, but the person. I think that a lot of people were rooting for Britney to fail. And there's this sort of assumption of, you know, this is what you wanted, this is what you're going to get.

Presenter35:18

In this eight part series for BBC Radio 4, I've spoken to cultural thinkers, lawyers, psychologists and key players in the entertainment industry to get their perspective on Brittany's remarkable story and enduring legacy.

Speaker 135:30

I used her as an example of somebody who really got what was required to do that kind of work.

Presenter35:38

We're also using drama to help us look behind the headlines and the conflicting accounts to imagine the woman underneath.

Presenter35:46

Join me for Pieces of Britney. Subscribe now on BBC Sounds.