Welcome to Cutting It

The first time I witnessed surgery I was 23 years old and straight out of university. This sort of thing wouldn’t happen now, a random arts graduate being allowed into an operating theatre. But from the moment knife touched skin and I saw the technicolour heaven of the patient’s body blooming in front of my eyes, it was as if the world stood still. Right there and then, I decided I had to become a surgeon.

A quarter of a century on, I get the same thrill of excitement every time I set foot in theatre. What’s taken years to understand is that what grips me is as much aesthetic as clinical. Getting a good patient outcome might be why we’re there, but being useful isn’t the only satisfaction. In surgery, I see things differently than in other areas of my life, with more clarity and a heightened sense of beauty. Even when I’m not busy with my own patients, there’s nothing I love more than popping into a colleague’s theatre to sneak a peek at their gloved hands quietly at work.

I’ve got 3 books out of my passion for the body. I also spent some years as a BBC TV presenter, reporting from the operating theatres across the world. None of this has satisfied my lust for the beautiful internal landscape of human anatomy. I’m excited that Substack is now giving me a space to share my observations, without the inevitable time-lag of book publishing, or the gagging restrictions of a TV script.

But that’s not all. The truth is that the body isn’t neutral for me anymore. Over the last 25 years, I’ve had 4 children (including twins) and have been through menopause. I’ve discovered that a heart valve condition I was born with will need repair. One of my children has had emergency brain surgery, and both my parents are frail. In my last book Alive: An Alternative Anatomy, I wrote about the more human side of medicine, what it means to live inside a body and the strange tension that exists, especially for doctors, between knowing and being. Even now, it feels like a journey I’ve only just embarked on.

When not operating or writing, I’m often in the kitchen baking. As a woman who’s never been comfortable with traditional gender roles, this is my little corner, a counterpoint to the intensity of my working life where I can just play around – sometimes with delicious results - without worrying about the consequences.

So, if you want to know more about the body, not from a starchily medical point of view but through the sights, sounds, smells and touch of someone who knows and passionately loves it; if you’re curious to hear about the day-to-day life of someone with a career straddling surgery and the arts; if you’re interested in some of the ethical questions that come with hospital life; if you’d like some some candid, personal thoughts about my own experiences of the body and ageing; or if you just like cake, I’m hoping this Substack might be for you. Please come and join me and let me know what you think.