Film Industry: I thought journalism could change the world... I was quite wrong

“I thought journalism could change the world... I was quite wrong”

Lucy Mathen was BBC’s first female Asian broadcaster till she made a career U-turn and became an eye doctor. She tells why her current job gives purpose to her life, unlike her previous one

    IN the mid-1970s, Lucy Mathen began her career as a print journalist, working for the Surrey Mirror. She then joined the BBC as the first female Asian broadcaster, and worked on Newsround from 1976 to 1980. One would think this was a golden opportunity for any ambitious woman serious about making a mark at a time when women were just becoming the visible faces of the workforce all over the world. But by 1988, Mathen had given up her glamorous, high-profile job to become an ophthalmologist.
The career switch People tried to dissuade her. “I was 36, a successful TV reporter with a glamorous, well-paying and interesting job. The medical team that interviewed me for the ophthalmology course tried its best to dissuade me , ‘Do you realise doctors have the highest rates of divorce and alcoholism’?, they asked me.” But Mathen had made up her mind. Highly disillusioned by her glamorous profession which couldn’t change the world, she sought her own path.
    “I was in Kabul in my capacity as a reporter, in 1988. The Russians were pulling out of Afghanistan. I was interviewing a male doctor, who talked about the chaotic health-care system there. While talking to him, I recalled another man, I had interviewed almost 10 years ago — a leading Sri Lankan Tamil Tiger commando in South India, who was terrified of the media — who had told me, ‘your weapon is more powerful than mine’. I believed him. I thought the world could be changed through journalism. Ten years later, after talking to the Afghan doctor, I felt like a fraud. I decided if I were in a war zone again, I would be a medic not a journalist,” says the 59-year-old who has written her life story in the book A Runaway Goat: Curing Blindness in forgotten India.
Challenges aplenty Mathen has never looked back since then, even though studying medicine involved hard work, where she had to sacrifice a fair amount of her family time. When she enrolled at the St George’s Hospital Medical School, London, Mathen was the oldest student in her class. She was already a mother of a sixyear-old girl, Leyla, and pregnant with her second child, Calum. It was her mother who helped her finish her studies without a break. “My mother has been an amazing support to me. My son was born in my third year, so I was breastfeeding before going off to the clinics. My mum never batted an eyelid.”
    Blindness is a cause that was close to her heart. Mathen knew that with the right education, passion and drive — all of which she had in plenty — she could change people’s lives. She explains, “I thought India would be a good place to start because it’s my birth country and also has the worst blindness problem in the world. I want to eliminate blindness from India, at least by 2020.
Cure lies in the heart The biggest challenge for her was to get the help of other eye doctors to join her mission. When Mathen started her work in India, almost 80 per cent of India’s eye doctors were working in urban areas and were into private practice, whereas the vast majority of India’s blind lived in villages with no access to eye surgeons. “I asked myself: ‘could it be that a diaspora of doctors provide a source of experienced eye surgeons who were willing to work for short periods at rural hospitals’?” Then, leading by example, she persuaded Indian surgeons to do the same. In 2000, six months after she registered Second Sight as a UK charity, she offered India a supply of experienced volunteer eye surgeons.”
    Though she had given up journalism, Mathen never really let go of her reporter’s instincts. “By 2007, most Second Sight surgeons were still from Britain. The regular volunteers came from Newcastle, London, Southampton, Wales and Northern Ireland. None of them batted an eyelid about going to rural Bihar. I had difficulty trying to recruit South Indian surgeons, who didn’t want to go anywhere North or rural. So, I started creating awareness through videos and road shows. By 2008, we had more Indian surgeons with us. They even outnumbered those from the UK. This was a huge achievement. I’ve always retained a ‘whatever it takes’ approach to curing blindness. Humanitarian work is, and should be, pretty straightforward. If you want to restore sight to the blind, there should be no excuses stopping you from doing precisely that. Being an ophthalmologist lets me make a real difference.”
I BELIEVE “I’VE ALWAYS MAINTAINED A ‘WHATEVER IT TAKES’ APPROACH TO CURING BLINDNESS. HUMANITARIAN WORK IS, AND SHOULD BE, PRETTY STRAIGHT FORWARD. IF YOU WANT TO RESTORE SIGHT TO THE BLIND, THERE SHOULD
BE NO
EXCUSES
STOPPING YOU
FROM DOING
PRECISELY THAT”