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Outlook: The heart of a heart surgeon

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Heart surgeon Professor Stephen Westaby

19/05/2022 GMT

The heart of a heart surgeon

BBC World Service - Outlook, The heart of a heart surgeon

Stephen Westaby has operated on 12,000 hearts

Professor Stephen Westaby has operated on more than 12,000 hearts and he estimates he's saved 97% of them.

Heart surgeon Stephen Westaby has saved thousands of patients throughout his 40 year career but it’s the deaths that stick with him. He tells Neal Razzell that as a teenager he was smart, but felt he wasn't bold enough to make the split-second life and death decisions required of a surgeon. It wasn’t until medical school when a rugby accident damaged the part of his brain that controls inhibition and risk-taking, that Professor Westaby overcame his shyness. He would later become famous for complex paediatric surgeries and would pioneer the use of a small artificial heart. This interview was first broadcast in July 2019.

Chilean couple Lorena Grez and Claudia Aravena share their daughter's birth story. They both had a big part in it as Lorena donated the egg, which was implanted into Claudia. But at the time of the birth only one of them could legally be recognised as the baby's mother. They tell Outlook's Jane Chambers why they fought to change this.   

Presenter: Mobeen Azhar

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

(Photo, Stephen Westaby. Credit, Stephen Westaby)

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