'Your Life in Their Hands': The context of a medical-media controversy

Abstract

As a forum for public presentations of medical practice and medical knowledge, broadcast television is a relative newcomer. Television transmission began in Britain in 1936, was halted by WWII and restarted in 1946. The television portrayal of medicine was a development shaped by existing conventions regarding the representation of medicine per se, and by the numerous and often con icting agendas of postwar broadcasting and a medical profession adjusting to the newly implemented National Health Service (NHS). Amidst these developments a particular event stands out, frequently recalled by contemporaries and given the signi cance of a touchstone in scholarly accounts of this period [1]. The event in question is the rst series of the BBC's 'Your Life in Their Hands' (hereafter YLITH) broadcast in the spring of 1958. Its particularity revolves around two possibly interrelated points: YLITH offered the viewing-public footage of surgical operations in progress, and it provoked erce condemnation from leading voices in the medical profession.Unpacking the controversy over YLITH is the chief concern of this paper. This exercise is productive in many ways, not least for the questions it raises about the way historians approach audio-visual sources and, more substantively, for the way it begins to map out the complex territory of medical-media relations in postwar Britain. I begin by describing the rst series of YLITH and move on to consider available accounts of the subsequent controversy. These accounts are then developed through a discussion of the broader context of medical-media relations, an area that has, as yet, received little historical attention. However, I will argue that the controversy surrounding YLITH can only be fully explained in relation to contemporary developments in the culture and organization of medical communication.The series in question consisted of 10 half-hour programmes, almost all of which were transmitted live as outside broadcasts. YLITH went out at 9.30 p.m. Tuesday evenings 11 February-15 April 1958, with the bulk of the programmes coming from regional hospitals although one featured the work of general practitioners attached to a cottage hospital (Table 1). Bill Duncalf, a producer working within Outside Broadcasts, was responsible for the series and its driving force, although the responsibility for medical programmes as such rested with Mary Adams, head of the Talks Department, and she oversaw much of the planning (and controversy). The purpose of the series was 'To see research and treatment in Provincial Hospitals and to demonstrate the fact that the most up-to-date Hospital treatment can be obtained outside London' [2]. Dr Charles Fletcher presented each programme from the Hammersmith Hospital, London, introducing the topic then handing over to the medical team of the respective hospital for the rest of the programme. The average audience for YLITH was approximately eight and a quarter million [3]. Its novelty lay in the portrayal of actual surgical procedures, a rst for

Where has the doctor gone? The mediazation of medicine on Dutch television, 1961—2000

“…There has been hardly any empirical research into the historical development of television content and science (Dawkins, 1998;Loughlin, 2000;Allan, 2002). A study was therefore conducted to ascertain whether the use of science on Dutch television changed from 1960 to 2000, and if so, how.…”

David Stafford-Clark (1916-1999): Seeing through a celebrity psychiatrist

“…Stafford-Clark was very aware that ‘[a]llowing oneself to be named in the press could and did result in accusations of unfair competition, which had the potential to elicit a hearing before the GMC for breach of ethical guidelines’ (Loughlin, 2005: 303–304). For instance, Charles Fletcher, the presenter of BBC TV’s pioneering Your Life in Their Hands (1958, 1961) which depicted surgical procedures, was warned by ‘senior colleagues’ that ‘involvement with television could undermine his future career’ (Loughlin, 2000: 179) – although, in the end, there was neither official censure nor any adverse impact on his career (Loughlin, 2005: 304). There was no need, though, for Stafford-Clark to directly defy the edict on professional anonymity.…”

Smoking and the New Health Education in Britain, 1950s–1970s

“…The secretary of the committee, Dr Charles Fletcher, was well known as a pioneer in media presentation of medicine, and Dr Jerry Morris, another committee member, also placed great emphasis on the importance of discussions of health in the media. 30,31 In 2000, at his 90th birthday conference at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, leading epidemiologist Sir Michael Marmot remarked that "Jerry has always told me I should watch more television rather than less." 32 The RCP hired a public relations consultant to manage the report's launch and held one of its first press conferences.…”