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Blood and Guts: A History Of Surgery (Ep 2)
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Enlarge textTuesday, 13th January 8:30PM AEDT (5 Part Series)
This five part series explores the incredible and diverse history of surgery.
Episode
Two: ‘Bleeding Hearts’
This part begins with a patient about to undergo cardiac
surgery. That surgery involved the dramatic acts of stopping her heart
and draining her blood. But only 70 years ago, surgeons operated on
every other body apart from the heart. The heart was seen as
‘untouchable’.
In 1944, Steven Harkin proved that the heart could be operated on. By clamping off blood vessels and cutting off oxygen to the brain, a surgeon had four minutes to operate before the brain was affected.
topGuerrilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst
Tuesday, 6th January 10:00PM AEDT
In the early 1970s, as Americans recovered from the trauma of the
Vietnam War and re-elected Richard Nixon as president, a story to rival
anything created by Hollywood unfolded in California.
It began with the “commando-like” kidnapping of pretty blonde newspaper heiress Patricia Campbell Hearst, granddaughter of William Randolph Hearst, and the closest thing America had to uncrowned royalty.
Blood and Guts: A History Of Surgery (Ep 1)
Starts Tuesday, 6th January 8:30PM AEDT (5 Part Series)
This five part series explores the incredible and diverse history of surgery.
Episode 1: 'Into the Brain'
‘Into the Brain’ is a fascinating
episode which explores the advancements brain surgery has made in the
past century. But it also questions the ethical dilemma of mind
experimentation and if progress should outweigh the risks it can pose
to human life.
Over 100 years ago, it was considered to be too complex and risky to operate on a brain. But that was before surgeon Harvey Kushing developed the art of neurosurgery. Neurosurgery had the net result of reducing patient mortality rates from 60% to 10%. A committed surgeon, Kushing would refuse to cancel an operation - even in one instance when he was told his son had died in a car accident.
Desperately Seeking Doctors
Starts Tuesday, 6th January 7:30PM AEDT (3 Part Series)
Australia has a chronic shortage of doctors and nowhere is this more
evident than in the bush. Country towns right across the country are so
desperate for a GP they’ve recruited doctors from lands as far away as
India, South Africa and the UK. Overseas trained doctors have now
become commonplace throughout the land – but how do these foreign
doctors cope once they’ve arrived in the middle of nowhere? And, just
as importantly, how do the locals in the middle of nowhere cope with
them?
Australia’s medical schools are also trying to deal with the bush doctor shortage by sending their final year students out for a term in a rural town. The hope is they gain an understanding of and appreciation for life as a bush doctor - but with most of our medical students being dyed in the wool city slickers many find their experience to be an eye opener - to say the least.
Sunday, 4th January 8:30PM AEDT
This is the gripping and tragic story of an ambitious doctor, the desperate
families who sought his help, and the medical establishment that
embraced him. The program features interviews with Dr Freeman’s former
patients, their families, his students, and medical historians. It
offers an often overwhelming look at one of the darkest chapters in
psychiatric history.
Freeman was 28 when he arrived in Washington D.C. to work at St Elizabeth’s hospital, one of the country’s largest institutions for the mentally ill and home to thousands of patients suffering from agitated depression, dementia, and psychosis. It was here that he embarked on a bold experiment: to discover if a physical abnormality in the brain caused mental illness.
Lunch With Madame Murat
Thursday, 1st January 7:30PM AEDT
Madame Murat’s is a family owned restaurant in the French village of
Pomarède celebrating 100 years of business. One of the last ‘family
inns’ left in operation, the family dinner menu is served to a paying
clientele. The owner, Jeanne Murat has worked at the restaurant since
she was 14. At 67, she and her eldest daughter Sylvie run Madame
Murat’s.
The family serves traditional recipes including chabrol soup, stuffed roast veal and blood sausages with apples. Many trade workers have been coming to Madame Murat’s for 20 or 30 years. One diner complains he has gained 10 kilos since he started eating there 2 years ago!
Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story
Tuesday, 30th December 10:00PM AEDT
The story of Stax Records began in the late 1950s when Mr. Stewart, a
white bank teller, and his sister Estelle Axton took over an old movie
theatre in a Memphis neighbourhood, with plans to use it as a studio
for recording country music.
At a time when the local pool chose to shut down rather than abide by an order to allow blacks and whites to swim together, Stax Records completely ignored segregation. “We never looked at colour”, said Ms Atkins, “We looked at people, and their talent.”
The Doctor Who Makes People Walk Again
Tuesday, 30th December 7:30PM AEDT
A doctor in China claims to be able to make people with spinal cord
injuries walk again through a controversial operation using the cells
of an aborted foetus. Is he really a miracle worker, or is he just a
maverick?
Depending on who you ask, Dr. Huang Honyung of Beijing’s Xishan Hospital is performing medical miracles. The doctor has taken advantage of China’s lax safety regulations and different ethical considerations to perform pioneering medical operations on those with accident induced paralysis and degenerative muscular conditions. He has become the last hope for hundreds of paralysed patients worldwide who are desperate to walk again, but have been disappointed by Western medicine.
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