Your Life In Their Hands
1 9 5 8 - 1 9 6 4 (UK)
1 9 8 0 - 1 9 8 6 (UK)
Before 1958, British television had confined its view of
hospital to the romantic tales of Emergency - Ward 10 where
the only gory red thing to be seen was when a nurse had overdone
her lipstick.
But in February 1958, the BBC took the revolutionary step of
transporting their cameras into a real operating theatre to
witness actual surgeons at work in a series called Your Life in
Their Hands. The result divided the medical profession and the
nation as a whole.
This innovative series was conceived with three goals; to
investigate new medical techniques; to applaud the medical
profession; and to provide "reassurance" for citizens at
home.
The series ran for six years and enthralled up to 10 million
viewers, but for many the blood-and-guts visuals were too
frightening and did anything BUT reassure. It was reported that
the program was partially to blame for the suicide of three women,
as well as many injuries.
The pre-recorded programs interviewed sick patients, watched
their admission to hospital, heard the prognosis of the experts
and learned of the action intended by the surgeons. Overhead
mirrors, microscopes and numerous cameras were then used to
capture events in the operating theatre, before the patients
recovery was monitored in the weeks and months that followed.
Never before had gallstones been removed on British television.
Open-heart surgery was even more dramatic and caesarean birth was
demonstrated just as graphically. One woman gassed herself after
watching a heart operation - She was facing a similar operation.
Two more gassed themselves after seeing an episode about cancer.
Both thought they had cancer and were said by their husbands to
have been very disturbed by the program. In fact, neither had the
disease.
 In spite of the fact that the BBC always put out a warning to
prevent the squeamish from watching, when the heart operation was
screened many viewers suffered shock in their own homes.
A Cardiff man fainted and gashed his head as he fell off his
chair, an elderly Birmingham woman was so shaken that she dropped
a pot of tea over her hands and legs and was severely scalded, and
a Yardley housewife bit her lip so badly that she needed seven
stitches.
The British Medical Association strongly attacked Your Life
in Their Hands and accused the BBC of 'pandering to the
morbid' and called the first program (showing six polio patients
being kept alive by artificial breathing pumps)
"deplorable". It was concerned that the series would
increase people's fears about their own health.
A Harley Street psychiatrist called it a "psychologically
dangerous experiment that could turn people into
hypochondriacs". Yet the series was made with the full
cooperation of the staff in the hospitals that were visited, and
the vast majority of doctors supported the program, saying it
provided a valuable service in dispelling fears about surgery.
Thankfully, colour television had not yet been introduced into
Britain. . .
When the series was revived in 1980, operations were shown for
the first time in full, gory colour and were definitely not for
the squeamish. For this series, surgeon Robert Winston acted as
the informative narrator. Five more editions were later screened
in 1991.
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