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Surgeons: At the Edge of Life

Documentaries

Factual: Health & Wellbeing

Meet the world-leading surgeons pushing science - and the human body - to its limits.

Transforming patients' lives, at the cutting edge of medicine. Meet the world-leading surgeons pushing science - and the human body - to its limits.

Series 2

BBC Two England

England

Simulcast of network BBC Two in high definition.

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Until 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales (analogue) was known simply as BBC Two Wales. BBC Two Wales (digital) was BBC 2W. From 03/01/2009 BBC Two Wales schedules on both analogue and digital became identical

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Katharine Patrick

Ruth Shurman

Richard Bond

Pawel Slawek

Kathy Lee

Matt Briggs

Debbie Vile

Louisa Hatfield

Nabila Hussein

Mat Davidson

Shaun Dooley

Dragonfly Film and Television

Surgeons: At the Edge of Life: Series 2: Every Second Counts

Every Second Counts

BBC Two - Surgeons: At the Edge of Life, Series 2, Every Second Counts

Surgeons have just minutes to perform life-saving emergency trauma operations.

Surgeons take on major trauma operations at Birmingham’s Queen Elizabeth Hospital. They have just minutes to save a woman with a life-threatening bleed on her brain.

The second season of the groundbreaking show concludes with an episode focused on the work of surgeons in the fast-paced field of trauma surgery. With access to the emergency department and trauma theatres of the Queen Elizabeth Hospital Birmingham, the episode features some of the UK’s top surgeons battling to make the difference between life and death for critically injured patients who arrive at the QE by land and air.

The Queen Elizabeth receives 9,000 patients to its emergency department each month. Many of the most seriously injured can only be saved by urgent surgical intervention. To cope with these trauma cases, the QE has 140 consultant surgeons regularly on call, night and day.

With no time to plan and often little or nothing known about a patient’s medical history, surgeons must make life-critical, split-second decisions, while racing to perform operations that are no less demanding than their day-to-day elective cases.

Consultant neurosurgeon Ismail Ughratdar has just minutes to operate to save the life of a 64-year-old woman who has a bleed on the brain after falling in the street. Blood is accumulating and putting pressure on her brain that is very likely to lead to permanent disability or death unless Ismail can perform a craniotomy to alleviate the pressure in time.

As the QE is also the base for receiving all military casualties from overseas, surgeons, doctors, nurses and anaesthetists from the armed forces work alongside NHS staff in the hospital’s unique major trauma service. Lessons drawn from the battlefield are especially useful when dealing with polytrauma patients – those brought in with multiple serious injuries.

One of the leading consultant general surgeons at the QE, Catherine Powell, is also a commander in the Royal Navy. When a motorcyclist is
rushed in by helicopter, she must decide whether to operate on his internal bleeding, or whether the badly dislocated shoulder that could cost him an arm is the most urgent priority.


Surgeons: At the Edge of Life: Series 2

BBC Two

Knowledge, drama, comedy and the arts for a broad adult audience.

BBC Two is a lively channel of depth and substance, carrying a range of knowledge-building programming complemented by great drama, comedy and arts.

Factual

Factual: Science & Nature: Science & Technology

Surgeons perform extraordinarily complex and risky procedures to transform lives.

Surgeons perform extraordinarily complex and risky procedures to transform and save their patients’ lives. The pressure is intense as they push the boundaries of modern medicine.

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Surgeons: At the Edge of Life

Series 2

Every Second Counts

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