THE SURGEON’S CUT: LIVING DONOR

BAFTA winning series The Surgeon's Cut profiles four ground-breaking surgeons from around the world, each with a visionary approach to their craft. “They're philosophers, storytellers and pioneers in their fields.

In this film we tell the story of the remarkable Dr Nancy Ascher. Shaped by horror films, feminism and an intellectually rigorous family, Nancy made history as the first woman to perform a liver transplant. 

Dr. Nancy Ascher has devoted her career to organ transplants and transplant research at the University of California, San Francisco. Per a 2013 UCSF profile, Ascher chose to pursue surgery in 1975, even though the field was predominantly male. Ascher was one of 20 women in her class of 180 in medical school, and after her residency, she became the first woman to perform a liver transplant. She went on to become UCSF's first female chair of the Department of Surgery, making her one of only a handful of women to hold that title in the country.

Today, she continues to work out of UCSF alongside her husband, John Roberts, also a transplant surgeon. Their work is most notable because they perform live liver transplants — a difficult surgery that uses a live person's liver for donation, rather than a cadaver's. (The liver is the only organ that can regenerate.)

"It is a rare operation," Ascher told SFGate. "Because it's dangerous to the donor, and it's highly demanding technically." But it's a vitally important procedure to continue developing. As SFGate pointed out, 1,700 people die each year in the U.S. while waiting for a donor.

Produced & Directed by Sophie Robinson

Producer Amelia King

Editor Jim Scott

DoP: Amy Newstead

Sound: Lucy Pickering

Archive Producer: Elizabeth Klink

Executive Producers James Van der Pool & Andrew Cohen BBC Studios

Watch on Netflix HERE