Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
England's Chief Medical Officer, known for outspokenness and pioneering sickle cell care and NHS research reform.
On the island
Eight records
Fantasia on a Theme by Thomas Tallis
I played the viola in the Midland Youth Orchestra, and I particularly love this. It's Vaughan Williams, and the depth and beauty of it is wonderful.
Brandenburg Concerto No. 3, I. Allegro
Ah well, I loved Bach and the Brandenberg concertos, and the Swingle singers came along, and I still love a cappella music when it's men's voices singing.
So there was a Saturday night bop in the student union, and occasionally my friends would get me to go. I wasn't greatly into pop. We had all sorts of people, Stevie Wander, The Cream, The Rolling Stones, and I remember the Who. So this one is won't get fooled again, which could apply to then or now.
This actually goes back to my time in Spain. I stopped medicine after the first two years and I married a diplomat and went to live in Spain for four years. And I was kept sane by the Englishman who taught me Spanish, who was gay, and he and his partner adored Queen. So they were always, as I was trying to learn Spanish, blasting me with Queen.
The Trumpet Shall SoundFavourite
Ah, the trumpets shall sound from Handel the Messiah. So my mother used to sing songs from the Messiah to us when we were small. And then when our children were young, we took them year after year to St John's Smith Square to hear the Messiah live, led and conducted by Stephen Leighton. So I wanted to use that version.
Ruggero Raimondi and Teresa Berganza
So, this one's Mozart and it's Don Giovanni, and it's a seduction song. I'm not sure that's perfect in a Me Too period, but it is just so very beautiful. And I still remember it from the Lozy film in the late 70s, where it starts in the glass blowing in Venice and then goes on to the Palladio Villa, the Rotunda. And in fact, Willem and I went to Venice for a long weekend earlier this year and went back to glass blowers and round some of these places. So, happy memories all round.
So, we're going for ABBA. And of course, I love the Mamma Mia movies. The first time I got my husband to go with Five Women, I think it was. The second time, he and I crept off on our own one Saturday afternoon. But I also remember the ABBA music from my student days. And this particular one I like because it was composed and given to UNICEF for the Year of the Child in 1979. Fast forward to my global health interests and UNICEF.
Choir of Trinity College, Cambridge
So we're going to hear Owain Park's The Wings of the Wind. He is a former organ scholar at Trinity, and he's been asked to compose the Te Deum for my installation as Master. And so I'm thrilled that we can use this one. And it's conducted by Stephen Leighton, who is the Senior Music Fellow.
In conversation
Presenter asks
1:55What's the key to changing people's behaviour as Chief Medical Officer?
Well, there are two ways to change behaviour. One is structural, seat belts, banning smoking in public places, taxes. And the other is nudging. We all in cafes or supermarkets reach for things that are easiest to take. So if the healthy is closest, then you're going to take that. ... I think, sadly, that we need a combination of both. I would prefer that we did it by nudges, but we do need the structural changes as well. And if you think what we're trying to counteract, which is the commercial people who spend billions and billions on marketing on healthy foods and drinks, we've got to be clever and we will need some structural change.
Presenter asks
2:50How receptive are the politicians to your evidence-based advice?
Well, they're always interested in advice that is evidence-based, but you have to remember that they may not be vote winners. So not only did it take us fifty years to understand the damage that tobacco does, it then took twenty years to move or longer actually to move to the ban on smoking. And most of this sort of thing is a free vote in Parliament because it's about societal needs and societal changes.
Presenter asks
10:48What do you remember about Jim Watson's book *The Double Helix*?
The keepsakes
The book
On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen
Harold McGee
I'm really into food. And I like science, and it tells you why the protein of egg white solidifies at a certain temperature. You understand what's going on. So I think that'll be rather interesting.
The luxury
Oh, I'd like something for a really beautiful bath in the sea, some wonderful smelling bubble bath.
I think mother gave it to me when I was about 15, and I remember reading it, and it is the most beautiful design, our DNA, the double helix, and the book is great. Trying to work through what is the basis of life. And you go from the body to an organ to a cell to the nucleus, and then you find this stringy stuff inside, and it's made up of genes. And then you find they did X-ray crystallography, they built models, and they discovered this beautiful ladder that winds round itself. So I went off to my medical school interviews, and they'd say, Why do you want to do medicine? And I'd say, because the double helix is so beautiful, and DNA is so fascinating. I want to learn more. And in fact, I still do a lot working on DNA and genomics.
Presenter asks
13:17How would you describe your experience of those early years as a junior doctor?
It was very tough. I did two years in Manchester. They were incredibly long hours. ... On the other hand, I think the hours now that young doctors do are equally hard because they're more intensive when they're there and they're pretty antisocial. We were well looked after by the team structure, but I found it quite brutalising because ... Well, I mean for instance sitting all night with a young woman in her early twenties whose kidneys had packed up and it w we didn't have enough dialysis machines, so she drowned in the fluid in her own lungs. And I found all of this I was clearly quite sensitive really difficult to take.
Presenter asks
17:51What happened when your first marriage ended and you remarried [Philip]?
Well, Philip had leukemia. I still remember walking across a square, a windy square, I don't know where it was, and his consultant saying to me, Sally, I presume you were going to get married. You better do it quickly. And it all happened rather quickly, and it it was sad. He was lovely. ... Um, by just getting on with it. You either collapse or you get on with it, and work is a wonderful place to get on with it. ... What was very interesting was how bad society is about death. We don't talk about it. I went back to work and people kept me on an island of silence. ... But it made me a better doctor. I saw what it was like to be on what I call the wrong side of medicine. I mean, I still remember when it was decided to stop his chemotherapy, he was still in hospital, we took him home to die. ... But he said most people stopped going into his room. He was in a separate room to protect him from infection because they didn't know what to say, they couldn't cope, and the ones that went in and chatted to him stood out.
Presenter asks
30:41You've been described as 'nanny-in-chief' by some columnists. How do you react to that?
I don't like it. I think there are two issues. One, it's suggesting that I'm wagging my finger when in fact I'm giving advice and people don't have to take it. ... And the second thing is I think it's very sexist. The first woman as CMO gets accused that she's nanny in chief. Well, what are they going to say to the man? I bet they don't say that. And then, of course, there's a bit that that's assuming nannies are bad, when many of the complainants may well have had nannies and they will have revered them and benefited from them, I imagine.
“I have found that compared to many I am fearless. I will say what I think needs to be said.”
“I saw what it was like to be on what I call the wrong side of medicine.”
“If we've got this many people dying twenty five thousand a year across Europe die of drug resistant infections then surely we have to give voice to this and do something about it.”
“I can now tell you that adrenaline goes out in the breastmilk too, because whenever I was angry or irritated, the baby would scream.”