Welcome to Metro.co.uk‘s The Big Questions, where we ask, well, the big questions (and the smaller ones too), and this week, we’re diving deep with Dr Ranj Singh.
The media and NHS doctor is a regular fixture on TV, often giving measured, accessible advice to the nation through appearances on the likes of Good Morning Britain or This Morning.
Or you may find him on children’s TV, or on their bookshelf, having appeared on CBeebies and written a number of kids’ books using his experience as a paediatric doctor.
Dr Ranj, the first in his family to become a doctor, is above all a medical professional dedicated to his patients, their health and the NHS as a whole.
Currently the medic is taking part in the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s We Eat Balanced campaign, encouraging Brits to know the importance of Vitamin B12, which can be found in meat and dairy.
He sat down with Metro.co.uk to speak about fighting post-Christmas fatigue, advising how to safely change your lifestyle rather than use crash diets – and how we need to listen to the health professionals warning about the danger the NHS is in.
Do you feel like you have a special advantage as a doctor on TV, in being able to connect directly with the British public?
I mean, that’s my job! As a doctor, especially as a doctor for children and young people where I work with people of various ages and their families, my job is to communicate effectively.
So if I’m in hospital and I’m in A&E explaining a diagnosis or a treatment or advising someone on their health, I have to be able to communicate effectively in a way people can understand and engage with and take on board, and I do exactly that on TV.
It’s being a health professional in a sort of different medium. But the job is to communicate and make things understandable and I’d like to think that I’m approachable and anyone can come up to me and ask me anything. And I hope that my advice would be understandable by the majority of people I’m talking to. That’s what I’d hope to achieve.
It’s what I strive for, absolutely. I hope I’m getting better and better at it, I hope it’s working.
I grew up in a non-English-speaking household. I’m from a working-class Asian community. So I know the importance of communication with groups who may not have English as their first language, or may not be socio-economically very high up or very well educated. So I always think, “right, how do I communicate so those people are included as well?”
I’d like to think that it’s something I actively try to achieve, I hope it works.
Is there a moment in your career that you’re most proud of?
There are lots of things I’m really, really proud of. Becoming a doctor was a big deal – there are no doctors in my family. I come from a long line of farmers… and coming from a long line of farmers, the B12 campaign itself is very important to me.
Getting into TV was something that happened by accident, but one of my proudest moments was winning a Bafta for my children’s TV show on Cbeebies.
And getting to do really enjoyable TV, too – I got to do Strictly, I got to do All-Star Musicals, I won Cooking with the Stars last year. I get these amazing opportunities to work with brilliant people. So yeah, there’s lots of proud moments but there’s definitely a few stand-outs.
But I’m the first health professional in my family so becoming a doctor was a big achievement.
Was TV work always something you were interested in growing up?
Not really, no! I didn’t think growing up that I wanted to be on television. Quite the opposite in fact.
See, when I was growing up I didn’t see people who looked like me on television. And that was the thing – that’s why role modeling I think is so important. This visibility and representation, which we’re getting better at, is so important.
So growing up I had a goal to become a doctor and that’s what I wanted to do, and that’s what I did. It was only when I was working as a junior doctor full time, I was probably about five years in, and an opportunity came up to work with the BBC, and I took it as a hobby.
I thought I need a bit of an outlet, something a bit creative as I’ve always been a bit creative, but this is something creative,a bit different, and I get to use my day job.
So I got involved in TV and it gradually just grew over time. It was never something I planned for but I embraced it and went with it, and I’m glad I did because now I’ve got two jobs – working in the media and also working in medicine.
I do both and I enjoy them both thoroughly. I wouldn’t give either of them up and I’m glad I did go with it.
You’ve been with the NHS for around 20 years, how have you seen it change in the last two decades?
I work in A&E which is right at the forefront, right at the front door in many ways of the NHS. Over the last 20 years, what have we seen? We talk about it every year, we talk about how the NHS is under huge pressure, especially during the winter months.
Over the course of my career I’ve certainly seen that pressure grow, and it’s true. It’s not just something we say every year. We say it every year, we warn about it because this could be the year everything collapses if we’re not careful, if we don’t do something about it.
And certainly, we’re seeing that right now. Doctors and healthcare professionals have been warning about the state of the NHS, particularly the pressures and demands on it at this time of year, and if we don’t plan and do something about it, outcomes are going to be terrible – and that’s what we’re seeing right now.
We’ve got the perfect storm of the remnants of the pandemic, we’ve got rising cases of flu, we’ve got a backlog of cases we need to deal with, people are struggling to get healthcare in other places. Retention of staff is a problem, we’ve got issues with ambulance waiting times.
This is a perfect storm at the moment. We’re seeing that play out nationally. It’s really important that the public, I think, pay attention to this. It’s time that we started looking after the NHS as well – we’re going to have to make some changes potentially, in how to look after it better.
Tell us about your vitamin B12 campaign – why is it important?
‘The campaign is in association with the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board, and it’s to remind everyone about the importance of B12. Vitamin B12 is a vital part of every single diet. It has several important functions in the body from the health of your blood cells to the functioning or your nervous system.
It also helps combat things like tiredness and fatigue which a lot of people will be feeling right now. So it’s to remind people about the importance of B12 but also to highlight that dairy, which is a staple part of lots of people’s diets, is a really good and efficient source of getting B12.
But if you don’t consume dairy or meat there are other sources as well. It’s even more important to think about whether you’re getting enough if you don’t eat meat or have dairy.
I think everyone is thinking about their diets and their health at this time of year after the festive period – we all do.
We all get New Year’s resolutions and things like that and think “right, I’m going to make this year healthy!” So it is very in tune with what people are thinking at the moment and it’s a good time to think about it.
And it’s a good time to remind people that you don’t just get vitamin B12 from dairy. You get a range of other nutrients including calcium, which is hugely important for bone health, and it’s a great source of protein. If you go for a lower-fat version it can be a very healthy source of these nutrients.
A lot of people will be going on crash diets and trying to totally change their lifestyle with the new year, is that a healthy way to go about it?
As a healthcare professional, all of us, including myself and my colleagues, wouldn’t recommend fad diets at all. Fad diets become very popular, especially this time of year, because they offer a seemingly quick fix to getting healthier or losing weight or whatever your goal may be.
And actually, we know that these types of diets are not sustainable and a lot of them are actually not healthy. They could cause harm if done inappropriately. So we would always advise people to do something sensible.
There are lots of very sensible ways to get healthier, and to lose weight if you have to. Lots of ways that are nutritionally sound and aren’t going to do you any harm and that are sustainable. Any diet you go on, if you want to go on a diet, has to be safe, has to be healthy, has to be sustainable. And right now it’s got to be cost-effective as well.
Everyone is worried about the cost of living, and I don’t think fad diets are the way to go – it’s important for people, especially young people, to be very wary about these sorts of things.
Do you take part in New Year’s resolutions?
I used to do resolutions and then I gave up a few years ago. Because I realised that it doesn’t matter – most of them don’t last.
I decided actively a few years back that I’m not going to do New Year’s resolutions but what I do do, which I think is really important for everybody, is at the end of every year sit down and reflect on your year. And a great way to do that is with the camera roll of your phone.
Go through every month and it brings up memories in the form of pictures which is a great thing. I go through it to remind myself what’s happened this year and to kind of mentally, not set a goal, but have an idea of what I’d like to achieve in the year ahead.
My personal mantra every single year is to try to do something that feels like I’m doing a bit better than the year before. Do something a bit more, or a bit different, or some accomplishment. If I’ve done that then I feel I’m achieving something. I do that rather than set myself specific goals.
I know for some people they need to set themselves goals and they like that and that’s how their minds work. But for me, I found I often only stick to them for a short period of time and I forget about them.
As a children’s book author, has being a paediatric doctor helped you tap into what children and young people are interested in?
I started writing children’s books right before the pandemic. And then, during the pandemic we all had a lot more time on our hands.
The books I write all have a goal – to help kids and young people in some sort of way. I have picture books for very young children that are inspirational in a way, that encourage young people to keep the positives and strengths in themselves and how they can nurture those and celebrate those. For the older kids … these are books directly written to help kids, growing up and related issues.
My next book has a purpose too – that’s set to be announced in the next couple of weeks and will be out early 2023.
It’s for a slightly older age group and it’s designed to help young people with certain issues they might be facing. These ideas and issues in the book come a lot from my experiences being a children’s healthcare professional.
Because I deal with these things day in, day out, particularly things with mental health. I work in A&E, and during the pandemic we saw a huge rise in mental health problems among young people – especially severe ones that ended up in hospital. It was definitely something I had to talk about and write about and try to help.
There are big sections about mental health and looking after your mental well-being because I think it’s more important now than it ever has been. Especially with the effect the pandemic had on young people.
Media and NHS Doctor, Dr Ranj is supporting the Agriculture and Horticulture Development Board’s We Eat Balanced campaign
What does Dr Ranj’s weekend look like?
Where might we find you on a typical Saturday?
Right now I’m doing pantomimes! So my typical Saturday at the moment is just getting up, having a bit of breakfast, walking to the theatre, doing two shows which takes up most of the day, then coming back and catching up with a bit of work before going to bed, so it’s quite boring right now!
It’s quite full on but I’m doing the pantomime with Suzanne Shaw, and we’re going to try and build in a running club in the morning.
Suzanne is a really big fan of running, she’s training for a marathon, so hopefully I can incorporate a bit of running into my mornings because we don’t start til early afternoon so we have a bit of time to get some exercise in the mornings. I could definitely do with a bit more of that this year!
How have your weekends evolved over the years?
If you speak to any medical professional, especially anyone who works in the NHS, every day merges into every other one. We don’t have the type of weekend feeling – it doesn’t matter if it’s a bank holiday, it doesn’t matter if it’s a weekend. Every day is a professional work day.
Working at the weekends to me is not an unusual feeling at all, albeit at a slightly different pace sometimes.
I don’t know if the weekends have really changed. I’ve always worked on the weekends. If I’m not in hospital then I might be filming something or writing. I spend a lot of time doing that.
Working on the weekends isn’t unusual for me!
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