Extraordinary Eyes Operation Ouch! Hospital Takeover

-He's Dr Chris.

-And he's Dr Xand.

And we're identical twins.

We were, until you grew your beard!

In this series, we're taking over

one of the biggest children's hospitals in Europe,

the amazing Alder Hey in Liverpool.

We'll go head-to-head as we take on

some of our hospital's most important jobs...

This isn't going well.

Ouch And About hits the wards for more medical mysteries.

-That is a hole going inside your stomach.

-Yes.

WHISTLE BLOWS

And we meet our brilliant Ouchpatients,

who come in for regular treatment.

Hi!

We've hidden our lab in a top-secret location.

And our experiments...

-just...got...

-HE BURPS

..bigger!

You guys are crazy!

So, are you ready to join us?

It's going to be out of this world.

-Take us down.

-Back to Earth!

Coming up today on...

Operation Ouch!

There's music and magic.

THEY SHOUT

Xand is Ouch And About on the street.

That is a really, really good question.

And find out why I'm wearing these.

Chris, what have you done to me?

But first...

The staff in the emergency department thought

they'd seen everything.

But they weren't expecting this.

Expecting what? Argh!

The Accident & Emergency team are ready and waiting

for the Air Ambulance to land.

They know that six-year-old Amy is on board

with deep cuts to her chest.

Ooh, sounds nasty. How did that happen?

Amy was playing in the garden over at her best friend Erin's house.

Nothing better than a garden party.

Let's dance!

If you say so.

They were playing about in a paddling pool.

Amazing! Nothing better than a pool party.

Quack! Quack!

OK, Xand. Plus, the sun was shining,

so she was enjoying a nice, cool drink.

Nothing better than the sun shining and enjoying a nice,

cool... Argh, watch out!

But she slipped and fell on the glass, cutting her chest.

Ouch!

The doctors are worried that the glass might have gone right through

to her internal organs, which could be very serious indeed.

So a whole load of experts get to work at the same time.

They're called the trauma team and they know how to work fast.

Helping Amy are doctors, nurses,

surgeons and a very special furry friend.

Victoria on the helicopter gave it to me.

Leading the team today is Dr Mary Ryan.

So, the first thing we have to make sure of, always,

-is that Amy is breathing OK.

-You're being really good.

We're really concerned that one of her lungs

might have collapsed, so we have to make sure

that she has air moving on both sides of her chest.

Have you had any problems with your breathing or does it feel all right?

Fine.

Amy's breathing sounds good, so it's time to focus on those cuts.

They need further investigation.

We're going to take a chest X-ray now and make sure that no shards of

glass have penetrated anywhere we can't see.

Just relax and hold Mummy's hand.

OK, there's your first picture done.

It's over to nurse practitioner Sarah Jackson to tell us the news.

She hasn't really damaged her lungs.

The cuts aren't as deep as that.

But there is a small piece of glass in her chest.

Actually, it's very, very close to the lining of the lung.

-She's been quite lucky.

-She's going to need surgery to remove the glass,

but amazing Amy is taking it all in her stride.

I feel fine.

They're lots and lots of nice people, doctors.

Oh, well, that's good. We'll catch up with Amy later

and see how she gets on in theatre.

What part of your body do you think this comes from?

Is it...?

The correct answer is B.

They are cells called cones and rods from inside your eyes.

Wow!

And now to our lab.

But this time we've hidden it in a top-secret location.

So secret that even Xand doesn't know where it is.

I am lymph-node man!

It's time for some amazing experiments.

Just don't try anything you see here at home.

Today, we're taking a good look at the cells in your eyes.

Hello. Did you know that you can see things

that you're not even looking at? Try it.

Keep your eyes fixed on my nose in the middle of your screen.

Now, without moving your eyes from my nose,

you'll notice that you can still see other things in the room around you.

Perhaps you can see the television remote.

Perhaps you can see a fish in a tank.

Perhaps you can see your identical twin brother, Dr Xand,

picking his nose at the lab bench, as usual!

Now, they'll seem a bit fuzzier than normal,

but you can see these things out of the corner of your eyes,

which is why I know that Dr Xand is still picking his nose!

Huh! That's because our eyes use two types of vision at the same time -

central vision, which is here, and peripheral vision,

which is all the way out here.

So this is your peripheral vision area.

If you're in the lab, looking here,

this will be your central vision area.

And Xand and I will be in your peripheral vision area,

looking grey and a bit distorted.

Because you're watching us on a screen

you're actually seeing everything with your central vision,

but we've altered this image to highlight

what your peripheral vision sees.

Phew! Back to normal.

But what is going on?

Why do things in your central field of vision look different

to things in your peripheral vision?

Well, it's all to do with the cells in your eyes called cones and rods.

Now, come here and stand on my eye.

OK, but you're going to have to lie down.

No, not that eye, this eye.

So that's what you did with all the gloves!

Now, this is exactly what an eye looks like if you cut it in half.

Well, it's not, is it?

I mean, it's massive and it's made of green gloves.

This bit at the front here, this is the pupil,

or the black hole at the front of your eye.

And light comes in here through the lens and hits the back of your eye,

or the retina.

The retina covers most of the inside surface of your eye.

And remember this picture?

This is what the surface of your retina looks like,

magnified under a very powerful microscope.

These cells are called rods...

And these are called cones.

We are going to show you how they help you see.

More cones and rods.

Let's make a retina.

Your red cone receptors are great at seeing colours and details

in bright light.

You have around 6-7 million of them in each eye and they give you

your central vision, which is why there is a higher

number of these super cones in the centre of your retina.

Your blue rods are found at the edge of your retinas.

You have around 120 million of them in each eye.

They make up your peripheral vision so you can see things

out of the corner of your eye.

We're going to show you just how important your peripheral vision is.

Xand, you're going to need these.

The...

I've put some blinkers on Xand so he can't see out of

the corner of his eyes, and he has only the use of his central vision.

-How are you doing, Xand?

-I'm pretty annoyed, actually.

You've stolen my peripheral vision!

That's right, but it's all in the name of science.

To understand what Xand is seeing,

put your hands around your eyes like this.

It's an effect called tunnel vision,

where you can only see what's straight ahead of you.

We're going to see how much difference

this makes to Xand's vision in the...

So, in this challenge we have to pick up these beakers...

-What beakers?

-..and fill them with water from this bucket...

-What bucket?!

-..using this jug...

-What jug?!

-..and then stack them into a neat pyramid,

and whoever gets there first will be the winner.

Look, I think I'm going to find this quite difficult. I can't even see.

Enough excuses, Xand.

Are you ready?

-No, I don't even know where my bucket is!

-Go!

'Let's see how much difference our peripheral vision really makes.'

This is really difficult.

I have to keep turning my head.

'We take our peripheral vision for granted,

'but everyday tasks would be much more difficult without it.'

I'm finding this challenge particularly enjoyable,

mainly because I'm beating Xand,

but also because I don't have to move my head around a lot

because I have my peripheral vision.

-Xand, you're not doing all that well.

-Oh!

-Hurry!

-I'm doing my best.

-Hurry, fill those beakers!

What's really difficult about this is that I can't see the table

very easily and then I don't know where I'm going when I get back.

Then I miss the jug, I have to keep looking at the cup, look at the jug,

make sure they match and try and do it all in a hurry.

OK, hold on, Xand,

I'm going to pause this competition while I'm ahead

and make it much harder for you. Lights, please.

Now I can't see ANYTHING!

Now, because I have my peripheral vision,

it's easy for me to see in the dark

because my rod cells, the edges of my retina,

are more sensitive to light.

My cones are really designed for working in bright sunshine and so,

in this dark, I'm making an absolute mess.

Come on.

Come on, Xand, you can still do it.

-I reckon I can catch...

-Ta-da!

Oh!

Lights up.

That didn't quite go to plan.

So, we've shown you how you can see things out of

the corner of your eyes at the same time as looking at

something in front of you.

And we've also shown you that the rod cells that make up

your peripheral vision help you see in the dark.

Well, Xand, that challenge was thirsty work.

Could you please pass me a full cup of water as...?

What are you doing?!

Well, don't blame me, Chris, blame the DRXPVRGs,

available in shops everywhere!

I'm hitting the wards with my Ouch bleeper,

because we've brought Ouch And About inside the hospital.

-Wow!

-Doctor Xand!

And I'm hitting the streets to answer your medical mysteries.

In the hospital, Chris has his first call.

It's from Dan, who has a rash all over his body.

-What's your question?

-My question is,

what makes the blood vessels burst in Henoch-Schonlein purpura?

Come again? What's the diagnosis, Doc?

That sounds to me like a case of...

That's right mouthful!

Do you have Henoch-Schonlein purpura?

-Yes.

-And is that why you've got that rash?

-Yes.

-First of all, let's have a little look.

Do you want to drive the Ouch Cam?

So, looking here, we can see that the blood vessels have leaked,

a bit of blood under the skin.

-That's a good one there.

-That's a really good one, isn't it?

But why does Henoch-Schonlein purpura make this happen?

Well, this is caused by Dan's own immune system

attacking his blood vessels.

The lining of the blood vessels becomes inflamed

and those blood vessels become leaky.

Now, Henoch-Schonlein purpura, as weird as it sounds,

is actually very, very common, and most of the time it gets better

with either no treatment or a short course of drugs called steroids.

OK, Dan, you have been an absolute star.

-Would you like an Operation Ouch sticker?

-Yes, please.

Thanks, Daniel. I'm Ouch And About on the street

and I think someone has a question for me.

Why do you cry?

Why do you cry? That is a really, really good question.

The main thing about crying is that you're making signals

to other people that say you're upset.

Your tear ducts are making tears.

The tears also run inside your nose

down a thing called your nasolacrimal duct,

which means your nose-tear duct,

and so you get a runny nose and then you're sobbing as well.

And we have bits of our brain that are very good at

seeing when people are upset, and then we go and help.

So, when you're crying, do people help you?

-Yeah.

-Yeah. It's good to have a cry.

I have a bit of a cry now and then as well.

Usually when Dr Chris is being mean to me,

or if I can't find Mr Grumbles.

Thanks very much, Benjamin.

Goodbye.

HE SNORES

Oi! Chris! No sleeping on the job. You've got another question.

-BEEPING

-Ah!

It's from nine-year-old Dolly.

-How do you do?

-I'm fine.

-What's your question?

-How does my infusion pump work?

What's the diagnosis, Doc?

Sounds like a case of...

-That's right.

-Why are you in hospital?

Because I've got short bowel syndrome.

What does that make it difficult for you to do?

Absorb food properly.

So, how does Dolly absorb food?

Into my heart.

Into your heart?

Dolly has a tube that goes straight into her heart.

This allows a special nutrient-packed food

to be put directly into her bloodstream

with the help of an infusion pump.

So, how does it work?

This is how much food Dolly needs for 12 hours,

but obviously she can't have it all at once,

so we trickle it from a tube here down into the infusion pump

-and then, if you look here...

-PUMP BEEPS

..then when that moves it's like a pair of fingers squeezing food

along the tube, a bit like squeezing toothpaste,

so the infusion pump allows a really controlled amount

to go into Dolly's heart.

So you can eat stuff with your mouth as well, can't you?

You just can't eat very much.

What's your favourite food?

-Roast dinner.

-Roast dinner?

OK, well, you're not alone there, Dolly.

I always have tomato ketchup with my potatoes.

Eurgh! I'm with you, Dolly.

I think you've earned yourself an Operation Ouch sticker.

-Good job. Bye!

-Bye.

Job done for today.

Clinic closed.

Earlier, Amy landed at A&E with three cuts on her chest.

She'd been splashing about in a paddling pool

with her best friend, Erin,

when she decided to have a nice, cool drink.

Unfortunately, she slipped and landed on the glass,

cutting her chest.

X-rays revealed that there's a chunk of glass deep in one of the cuts,

so she needs surgery.

Amy is given an anaesthetic so she will be asleep for the operation

and won't feel any pain.

Surgeon Maryam Haneef is ready to fix Amy up.

As the cuts are deep,

Dr Maryam needs to check that nothing important

inside Amy's chest has been damaged.

Your lungs are protected by the chest wall,

which includes a cage of 24 ribs and a thick cushion of muscles.

They're called the intercostal muscles.

Their job is to move in and out to help you breathe.

A deep cut through the intercostal muscles could damage your ribs

or even your lungs.

OK, so how much damage has Amy done, Doc?

If you're squeamish, look away now.

She was very lucky, actually.

It had just skimmed the surface of her rib.

It's gone through some of the layers of her muscle,

but the deeper layers were safe.

So she's had a close call for that.

Oh! That's a big piece of glass.

We made sure that there were no other small pieces left behind

by feeling inside the wound.

And I don't feel any glass there at all.

After the op, Amy is feeling really tired,

but with a new outfit from Dad, she can't wait to get home.

There's no doubt that she's been really lucky.

Bye-bye, Amy. Get better soon.

Still to come, Chris peers into pioneering research...

There is a miracle of modern science taking place.

..and Matthew's bashed his bonce.

I hit myself on a goalpost.

In hospital, it's not just the doctors and nurses

who help you get fixed.

There are lots of other heroes working behind the scenes.

Ah, yes!

What will happen when we have a go at their amazing jobs?

Welcome to the Dr Chris Show.

Useless!

This is Operation Takeover!

Today's hero is the hospital's very own Dr Showbiz, Vicky Charnock.

Vicky is in charge of a whole troop of entertainers,

keeping the patients happy with music, arts,

crafts and even animation.

So, Vicki, patients need entertainment,

but you do more than that, don't you?

If you participate in arts activities,

it can make your body feel better and, if your body feels better,

you can feel less stressed.

Not just patients but their families as well.

We join some of the entertainers to find out exactly what's involved.

So, what do you guys do in the hospital?

We try to use our music to bring a bit of a calming atmosphere

and help with the stress levels.

Sometimes you can see on the monitor a stressed child's heart rate

actually come down while we are playing.

Oh, Xand, listen up.

Do you recognise that tune?

Of course I do. It's our theme tune.

Alfie's feeling better already.

As entertainment is so important to health,

we need to get in on the act.

It's time for...

And we're going to perform a magic show.

Where's Chris?

Ah!

How come you get a cape?

Because I'm the real magician.

We've got the toughest audience of all, the patients of Ward 3C.

Not 3C! Ah!

Our judges will decide whether it's a magical moment that makes them

feel better or an embarrassing fail.

This is looking like a very tough crowd, but I'm not too worried

because I've got something under my hat.

I mean, I don't actually have something under my hat,

it's just an expression, but anyway...

I'm going to win.

There's more to being a magician than Xand's fancy cape.

I've been practising an amazing trick for weeks.

Well, Chris, I'm up first with my...

Instructions say I need a cup,

bottle of real milk and I need a hat.

-Has anybody got a hat I can borrow?

-You're wearing a hat.

'Oh, I'll use that, then.'

"Take the milk and pour it into the cup that's in the hat."

-Xand, the cup isn't in the hat, the cup's on the table.

-What?!

Argh! Oh, no!

'Unlucky, Xand, it's going wrong.

'The audience is finding it funny.'

Do think it'll work if I just put the cup in the hat?

Now, it says sometimes it works if you use some real magic.

Can you all say abracadabra, OK?

One, two,...

Abracadabra!

All I can do is try and take the cup out of the hat.

'Xand's trick worked!'

THEY CHEER

-Shall I put it on my head?

-There must be milk in the hat.

Ta-da!

'That's going to be a tough act to follow.

'Everyone was smiling and relaxed.

'But can I beat Xand with my...?'

What I need something with a hole in it.

I've got a roll of surgical tape.

A roll of surgical tape. OK, that will do.

So then I need a piece of string.

I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to use my shoelace.

Who wants to come and grab my shoelace?

Try pulling that one.

'Oh, audience participation!

'Clever idea.'

We're going to tie a loop in this.

Now, can you come and pull on that for me?

Pull on that. Go on!

Is that tight? It's not going to break.

Dr Xand, maybe you could come and give me a hand over here.

For this trick to work, what we have to do is keep the tape on the loop.

Can you just test that? Is the tape properly there?

It's not going to fall.

So I want you to hold that end.

All I have to do is hold it. I've got it.

Are you holding it nice and tight?

Hey! What?!

'That deserves a replay.

'There it is, and then it's gone.

'I'm very impressed.'

'But what did our judges think?

'Time for the verdict.'

Three, two, one...

Vote.

Let's have a count up.

Five votes for me!

I win!

OK, OK, but I did get two.

Yay!

Hopefully everyone feels less stressed,

which will help them get well soon.

Was it better than just sitting in your hospital bed doing nothing?

-Yes.

-(Say yes.)

'That's something, even if Evie was just trying to please us.'

You know what I've always wanted to do to the audience on Ward 3C?

-What's that?

-Make them disappear!

No!

Well, that was a very impressive piece of magic, Dr Xand.

Uh, not us too!

Our next patient thought today would be normal day.

But then he ended up in the emergency department,

and that's not normal at all!

Unless of course you work there, then you'd be there every day.

If you were a doctor there, you would just go in day after day,

every day would be the same. It would be completely normal for you.

Except on weekends.

Sat in Accident & Emergency with his mum is nine-year-old Matthew.

I fell over and hit myself on a goalpost.

Oh, off the post. That sounds painful.

Let's find out more.

Matthew was in the playground with his whole class.

Sounds fun.

-Sliding...

-Ooh, on a helter-skelter?

No, Xand, he was...

On a sledge in the snow?

No, Xand. He was...

On a giant water slide?

No, Xand, he was running really fast,

fell over and ended up sliding into a goalpost headfirst.

Ouch!

It's over to Dr Mary Ryan again to have a look at that head.

You might want to look away now if you're squeamish.

What part of your head did you hit?

Oh, the top bit. I'll look in your eyes, Matthew.

-So, do you think you can follow this light with your eyes?

-Yeah.

Because Matthew had a knock on his head,

Dr Mary is using this test to check his brain is working correctly.

Excellent, good man.

Right, Matthew, so,

you've not suffered any big ill effects from that, OK?

I think you're going to be absolutely fine.

You do need to have a little bit of glue on this cut, OK?

Because it's just a little bit open and there's a little bit of blood,

all right? But it's only tiny,

so we'll glue you back together and you'll be fine.

Hang tight, I'll get someone in to you, OK?

Matthew kicks back while he waits for the nurse.

-Looks quite comfy.

-Yeah, it's really comfy.

Don't go getting any ideas, Xand.

I was just saying.

Hiya, I'm Laura. I'm just going to glue your head, OK?

Matthew's not looking so sure.

Nurse Laura uses a special medical liquid to glue that gash.

-OK?

-Yeah.

-Is it hurting?

-No.

-Well done. Can we sit you up? You ready?

-Yeah.

With that cut closed, Matthew is all fixed up.

Where are you off to, fella?

Try and get a cookie or something.

-A cookie?

-I think you deserve it.

Bye!

Xand, I'm about to do a red blood cell experiment

and I need a plate of doughnuts that I left here.

Doughnuts? Why, I don't know anything about a plate of doughnuts.

Really? It was a plate exactly like this one here.

It's just, it was full of uneaten doughnuts

and this seems to have little scraps of eaten doughnut.

Well, I'd love to help, but you probably just forgot

-where you put it.

-Maybe.

Unless, of course, someone's eaten them.

This is not the moment for these baseless accusations.

It's time for Investigation Ouch!

This is the Bristol Blood Centre,

and it's full of blood that has been donated

by healthy people to help patients.

In this room is almost half of England's blood supply.

-Wow!

-The blood here is given to patients through bags like these,

directly into their veins.

It's called a blood transfusion.

Most of the time this works very well,

but just occasionally their immune system starts to reject the blood

that's being transfused into them.

So the researchers at Bristol

have developed an amazing way to make blood

that won't be rejected.

Part of that team is top scientist Dr Ash Toye.

So, Ash, what are you doing here in this lab?

We're taking a portion of normal donor blood

and we isolate the stem cells in that portion of normal blood,

and we grow more stem cells from that

which we then turn into red blood cells.

This blood grown from stem cells is purer so it won't get rejected

-by its recipient.

-That's amazing.

But what are stem cells?

Different parts of your body are made up of different types of cells.

They're everywhere - in your blood,

your brain

and even your hair.

Stem cells are your body's spare cells

which don't have a job yet and are waiting to be told what to do.

What's brilliant is that scientists like Ash have found a way of doing

what your body does naturally in a lab -

turning stem cells into red blood cells.

In this slightly unremarkable-looking flask

there is almost a miracle of modern science taking place.

How do you make sure that these cells become red blood cells?

They are in a really rich nutrient solution that helps the cell

know that it wants to be a red blood cell.

This is a real image of a stem cell.

Every stem cell has a nucleus in its centre.

But red blood cells don't.

And there's a reason for that -

they have to be tiny enough to squeeze through

the smallest blood vessels in your body.

So the first thing that has to happen to a stem cell

if it's going to turn into a red blood cell

is it needs to lose its nucleus.

To demonstrate this, I've had to get some more doughnuts.

I've still got no idea what happened to the other ones I bought.

If you have a cell with a nucleus

and you try and squeeze it through the blood vessels,

you can see it doesn't really work very well.

You can get it in, but...

..it damages the cell pretty badly.

'If I remove the jam - sorry, nucleus -

'it will turn into a red blood cell.'

So that's ended up as a sort of squashed disc shape.

And that's the special shape that the red blood cell has to have

-to be more flexible.

-And it is a tight fit,

but it'll get through and remain undamaged.

So it can squeeze to about half its size because you no longer

have that nucleus in the way.

That is why red cells have to lose their nucleus.

'Let's take a look at this under the microscope.'

Here's an example there where you can see these cells

with no dark nucleus. They are basically red blood cells.

The hope is that in a couple of years,

patients whose bodies reject donor blood will benefit from this pure

lab blood made from stem cells.

And this is the final product.

This is 100 billion red blood cells.

It might not look like much,

but this is the most that anyone in the world

has ever managed to produce from the stem cells of a single donor.

Wow!

Next time on Operation Ouch! Hospital takeover...

Go, you Greens!

..there's a battle in the lab.

It's all over for the fungus.

Find out why this makes Xand say...

Wow!

And we get stuck in.

Oh, yuck.

But we'll see you next time for some more Operation Ouch!

Chris? Chris?!

Coming up today on...

Operation Ouch!

XAND LAUGHS

And the success of the invention of the Doctor Xand Visual...

HE MUMBLES