The Life Scientific: Jonathan Shepherd

Loading player...
Surgeons often have to deal with the consequences of violent attacks - becoming all too familiar with patterns of public violence, and peaks around weekends, alcohol-infused events and occasions that bring together groups with conflicting ideals.

Professor Jonathan Shepherd not only recognised the link between public violence and emergency hospital admissions, he actually did something about it.

As a senior lecturer in Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery in the early 1980s, Jonathan started looking into this trend - and his research revealed that most violent assaults resulting in emergency hospital treatment are not reported to police.

As a result, he devised the ‘Cardiff Model for Violence Prevention’: a programme where hospitals share data about admissions relating to violent attacks with local authorities. He also went on to study various aspects of violent assault and deliver evidence-based solutions - from alcohol restrictions in hotspots, to less breakable beer glasses in pubs.

The impacts have been significant, delivering reductions in hospital admissions and in violent attacks recorded by police; not only in Cardiff, but in cities around the world where the model is used. Today, as an Emeritus Professor of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery at Cardiff University - where he’s also Director of their Crime, Security and Intelligence Innovation Institute - Jonathan continues to bring together the medical sector with local authorities, finding practical ways to make cities and their residents safer.

But his career, straddling the worlds of practise, science and policy, is an unusual one; here he talks to Professor Jim Al-Khalili about what drove him to make a difference.

Presentedby Jim Al-Khalili
Produced by Lucy Taylor
Reversion for World Service by Minnie Harrop
22 Sep English United Kingdom Science

Other recent episodes

The Life Scientific: Tim Coulson

As a young man, traveling in Africa, Tim Coulson - now Professor of Zoology at the University of Oxford - became seriously ill with malaria and was told a second bout would probably kill him. Aged only 20, this brush with his own mortality led him to promise himself he…
20 Oct 27 min

The Life Scientific: Brian Schmidt

Have you ever pondered the fact that the universe is expanding? And not only that, it's expanding at an increasing speed - meaning everything around us is getting further and further away? If that isolating thought makes you feel slightly panicked, don't worry: this programme also contains wine! Brian Schmidt…
13 Oct 27 min

The Life Scientific: Jane Goodall

The celebrated primatologist Jane Goodall died last week at the age of 91. In tribute, we’re re-sharing this interview from 2020, where she reflects on the years she spent living with the wild chimpanzees in Gombe in eastern Tanzania and why she believes the best way to bring about change…
6 Oct 26 min

The Life Scientific: Jacqueline McKinley

How much information can you extract from a burnt fragment of human bone? Quite a lot, it turns out - not only about the individual, but also their broader lives and communities; and these are the stories unearthed by Jacqueline McKinley, a Principal Osteoarchaeologist with Wessex Archaeology. During her career,…
29 Sep 26 min

The Life Scientific: Doyne Farmer

Doyne Farmer is something of a rebel. Back in the seventies, when he was a student, he walked into a casino in Las Vegas, sat down at a roulette table and beat the house. To anyone watching the wheel spin and the ball clatter to its final resting place, his…
15 Sep 26 min