• Question: What's been the most exciting thing you have witnessed during your career?

    Asked by anon-202380 to Rebecca, Raashid, Matthew, Marie, Hanna, Gareth on 7 Mar 2019.
    • Photo: Hanna Jeffery

      Hanna Jeffery answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      For me, it has been watching someone have their cochlear implant switched on. We don’t do cochlear implants in my department, so it is something I have only seen when I have visited other hospitals. There are loads of videos online of grown ups and little children trying out their implants for the first time. For example:

    • Photo: Matthew Smith

      Matthew Smith answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      I think my answer will not be as exciting as everyone else’s but i’ll give it a go!

      One memory that sticks in my mind was when i was applying for PhD positions at a cancer center in London. One of the group leaders presented some work that had a movie showing a cancer cell. What amazed me was that the cancer cell ‘persuaded’ a healthy cell to help it. This was the first time i realised quite how clever (and sneaky) cancer can be! This video has always stuck in my mind.

    • Photo: Rebecca Gosling

      Rebecca Gosling answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      I will always remember the first time I saw a patient be treated for a massive heart attack. His heart attack was so big that his heart kept stopping and we kept having to give him electric shocks to re start it. There was a team of about 10 of us rushing around him trying to save him. My boss was then able to get a stent (basically a tube) into his artery and open it back up so that his heart was getting blood again. This made him better. He woke up with no idea what had happened and was completely fine! IT was amazing to see.

    • Photo: Marie Cameron

      Marie Cameron answered on 7 Mar 2019: last edited 7 Mar 2019 3:06 pm

      Oooh – good question! So many things, it is hard to pick one. The first operation I ever watched was exciting! 🙂 I also used to be involved in research where people who had cancer were given new medicines to see if they would help them. When the medicines worked it was amazing. It felt like someone who had lost hope of living was getting the hope back again.

    • Photo: Gareth Nye

      Gareth Nye answered on 7 Mar 2019:

      Watching a baby being born is always exciting but especially when it was poorly during the pregnancy- seeing it come out and knowing it’s ok is very exciting

    • Photo: Raashid Ali

      Raashid Ali answered on 8 Mar 2019:

      There are so many great things that I’ve seen but the most exciting thing was witnessing an organ retrieval.

      I’d never been in the operating theatre while surgery was in progress, so that was the first for me, it got better as I got to see the different organs – (the heart, lungs, kidney, pancreas and the liver)!

      The experience of seeing the organs outside the body was surreal, the organs I’d spent so long learning about and only saw diagrams and images of, were being delicately looked after and prepared to be sent to differernt hospitals for patienst across the country in front of my eyes!!

      The best part of this entire experience was seeing the heart being placed into a special machine (“heart in box”) and seeing it beat outside the body was absolutely amazing and mindblowing!!!

      Although it was sad to see a life end it was wonderful to know the organs would then go on to save 5 lives!

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