The God complex: Part 1
The Slow Newscast
Alice Sandelson
4.6 • 894 Ratings
🗓️ 20 January 2026
⏱️ 39 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
When an esteemed transplant surgeon is found to have sexually harassed a number of his female colleagues — sometimes in the middle of operations — the General Medical Council recommends that he be struck off the medical register. But that is not what happens.
Rachel Sylvester discovers that the case of James Gilbert, isn't a shocking one-off. In fact, it is symptomatic of a much wider problem in surgery.
Reporter: Rachel Sylvester
Producer: Gary Marshall
Artwork: Lola Williams
Sound Design: Dominic Delargy
Editor: Jasper Corbett
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | The Observer. Hello and welcome to the slow newscast from The Observer. I'm Alexi Mostris, |
| 0:15.3 | and if you think this episode sounds a bit different, you'd be right. I'm very excited to be stepping in as the new host of the show. |
| 0:23.4 | Each week, I'll introduce a brand new, amazing story reported by our brilliant journalists |
| 0:29.2 | at the paper and beyond. We'll cover everything, from Trump to TikTok, terror financing to Taylor Swift, |
| 0:36.2 | and always with a focus on what really matters, |
| 0:39.9 | people. As F. Scott Fitzgerald almost said, story is character and character is story. |
| 0:46.8 | That's what the slow newscast is all about. This week, I want you to imagine that it's 1997, |
| 0:53.7 | and you're a passenger on a particular |
| 0:55.6 | flight, Korean Air 801, coming into land at Guam. |
| 1:01.7 | It's 1am and the weather is poor. |
| 1:04.6 | The rain is hammering against the sheet metal of the Boeing 747. |
| 1:09.1 | But you're not paying much attention. |
| 1:11.0 | Maybe you're concentrating on your in-flight movie. |
| 1:13.9 | Maybe you've got your headphones in. |
| 1:15.9 | You trust the professionals to bring you home safe and sound. |
| 1:20.4 | But in the cabin, that sacred space where life and death decisions are made, things are about |
| 1:26.0 | to go badly wrong. |
| 1:29.4 | The flight crew can't see out of the window, the weather is too bad. |
| 1:33.6 | To land, they're supposed to use something called an instrument approach. Basically, it's |
| 1:38.9 | a procedure that tells the captain exactly where to fly and how low to go. |
| 1:44.6 | But on this night, part of the system isn't working. |
| 1:47.9 | The captain has to land himself. |
... |
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