The team at healthtalk.org were saddened to hear of the death of Dr. Oliver Sacks on Sunday 30^th August. He had been diagnosed with terminal cancer earlier in the year.

Dr. Sacks was a neurologist and writer famed for his books about various conditions related to the brain. Famously however, his books were not preoccupied with the scientific intrigue but with patients as people, with their own unique stories. In his book ‘The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat’ Sacks wrote:

‘In examining disease, we gain wisdom about anatomy and physiology and biology. In examining the person with disease, we gain wisdom about life.’

As fans of his work, and noting that we had much in common, Lu‚àö‚â†s got in touch with Dr Sacks to suggest meeting up. So it was that in Adam, Lu‚àö‚â†s and I met with Dr. Sacks and his colleague Kate Edgar in January 2014 to film introductions for both the teaching and learning and ‘life-changing injuries’ sections of the website.

Following the filming we got chatting about colour blindness and why Dr. Sacks’ favourite of his books was ‘The Island of the Colour-blind’. With kind permission of Kate Edgar, Dr. Sacks’ colleague, we are pleased to bring you footage of this conversation.