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Desert Island Discs

Dr Waheed Arian, doctor

Desert Island Discs

BBC

Society & Culture, Music Commentary, Music, Personal Journals

4.413.7K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2022

⏱️ 35 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dr Waheed Arian is a radiologist who set up a charity called Arian Teleheal in 2015. The charity enables volunteer doctors in the west to advise colleagues in conflict zones using smartphone technology. The charity has helped save many lives in countries including Syria, Uganda and Afghanistan where Waheed was born. In 1988, at the height of the Soviet-Afghan conflict, Waheed and his family fled Kabul for Pakistan where they lived in a refugee camp for the next few years. Waheed was just five when they arrived there and contracted tuberculosis. The doctor who saved his life planted a dream and Waheed decided that one day he would study medicine. When he was 15 Afghanistan was in the grip of the Taliban and Waheed and his parents knew it was only a matter of time before he would be recruited to join their fight. Waheed's family found someone who, for a fee, offered to help him leave the country and claim refugee status in the UK. He arrived in the UK in 1999, studied A levels while working in a number of jobs and then in 2003 took up a place to read medicine at Cambridge University. In 2014 he began training as a radiologist and currently works in the A&E department at a busy NHS hospital. In 2017 he won a UN Global Hero Award for his charity work. DISC ONE: Lose Yourself by Eminem DISC TWO: Gule Sori by Farhad Darya DISC THREE: Eye of the Tiger by Survivor DISC FOUR: Never Enough by Loren Allred DISC FIVE: Home by Michael Bublé DISC SIX: Fly by Celine Dion DISC SEVEN: Are You Ready for Love by Elton John DISC EIGHT: Everything I Wanted by Billie Eilish BOOK CHOICE: The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind by Bryan Mealer and William Kamkwamba LUXURY ITEM: Pen and paper CASTAWAY'S FAVOURITE: Fly by Celine Dion Presenter: Lauren Laverne Producer: Paula McGinley

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

BBC Sounds Music Radio Podcasts

0:04.9

Hello, I'm Lauren LeVern and this is the Deser Island Disks Podcast.

0:08.6

Every week I ask my guests to choose the eight tracks, book and luxury they'd want to take with them

0:13.9

if they were cast away to a desert island.

0:16.4

And for right reasons, the music is shorter than the original broadcast.

0:21.2

I hope you enjoy listening.

0:44.8

My cast away this week is the radiologist and humanitarian Dr. Waheed Arian.

0:50.2

He's a pioneer in telemedicine, where volunteer medics around the world use

0:54.6

everyday mobile phone technology to advise doctors working on the ground thousands of miles away.

1:00.3

It saved many lives in war zones and remote communities,

1:04.3

in countries including Syria, Uganda and Afghanistan, where Waheed was born.

1:09.4

He founded the charity Arian Teleheal in 2015 and won a UN Global Hero Award two years later.

1:16.4

All of which is remarkable, though given his backstory, it's nothing short of miraculous.

1:22.0

When he was just five, his family was forced to flee their home in Kabul during the Soviet

1:27.4

Afghan conflict, narrowly escaping the bombing raids that followed them to Pakistan.

1:32.0

Arriving as refugees, they were struck by malaria and malnutrition and he almost died of tuberculosis.

1:38.5

The doctor who saved his life was impressed by his curiosity and giving him a stethoscope

1:44.2

and a textbook also planted a dream. Six-year-old Waheed decided that he too would become a doctor.

1:51.1

The ambition took him from a refugee camp in Peshawar to Cambridge University and beyond.

1:57.2

He says, in the UK, the opportunities to achieve my potential and to give back to my family,

2:02.9

my adopted country and my homeland were within my grasp and I was determined to seize them with

2:08.8

both hands. Dr. Waheed Arian welcomed to Desert Island Discs.

...

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