Noel Fitzpatrick on becoming a supervet
Supervet Noel Fitzpatrick tells Jim Al-Khalili how veterinary medicine could benefit humans.
For all his success as a Supervet on TV and as a pioneering orthopedic surgeon, Noel Fitzpatrick insists that his life has been full of failures. He didn鈥檛 enjoy studying for his specialist vet exams and spent ten years working as an actor before setting up his veterinary practice, Fitzpatrick Referrals. Determined to offer animals access to medical treatments and facilities that are more commonly reserved for humans, he has pioneered several new surgical procedures for small animals, specialising in spinal injuries and creating bionic limbs. The prosthetic leg he made for a German shepherd dog Storm was the first of its kind, inspired by the method that was used to rebuild the arm of one of the victims of the 7/7 bombing in London. And he built the world鈥檚 first prosthetic paws for a cat called Oscar whose feet had been crushed by a combine harvester. Now he鈥檚 on a mission to break down the barriers between human and veterinary medicine so that both animals and humans can benefit from cutting edge research, without the need to do experiments on animals.
Producer: Anna Buckley
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Broadcasts
- Tue 30 Oct 2018 09:00麻豆社 Radio 4
- Tue 30 Oct 2018 21:30麻豆社 Radio 4
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The Life Scientific
Professor Jim Al-Khalili talks to leading scientists about their life and work.
