Steve: Dr. Ross Simmons, thank you so much for agreeing to have a chat to me today. I’m excited about this interview because I actually know you somewhat better than most of the other folk I’ve interviewed – you’re an elder at the church that I attend. So, Ross, first up, please us a little bit about yourself, and what field you work in?
Ross: No problem. I work as a consultant anaesthetist for the NHS in Scotland. Anaesthetists are the people that serve a multitude of different specialties. Primarily people would think of anaesthetists as the doctors that put you to sleep. So that’s part of our work. We anaesthetise people so they can undergo surgery. We also help in obstetrics when women are having babies. So not only do we provide the means for caesarean section, but also pain relief and labour. Many anaesthetists also run advanced pain clinics and chronic pain clinic and run intensive care and critical care too.
We engage in all sorts of aspects of the hospital. My main interest is in cancer surgery and I anaesthetise children as well as part of my job, and I cover emergencies. So that’s what my working week looks like. I’m either anaesthetising for cancer surgery, covering the emergency theatre, or anaesthetising children.
Steve: Fantastic. That sounds like it’s probably quite technical, also quite crucial. I imagine that this isn’t something that you just study for a year or two and then off you go. What does the journey look like to get to the point that you’re at to specialising in this?
Ross: I went to medical school in 1992. I graduated in 1999, so that was seven years. After my two years of university-based learning before I went into hospitals, I was given the opportunity to do a molecular biology degree. So, I took some time out, did a molecular biology degree and then went back into medicine. I entered anaesthetics in February 2001, and I became a consultant in 2009. In all, if you factor in medical school, that was 16 years. But if I hadn’t done the science degree and a bit of research, it would have been about 12 to 13 years.
Steve: Wow, that is a long road. I suppose that that makes sense because it’s quite dangerous the work that you do. What are the consequences if you miscalculate?
Ross: So anaesthetics is unusual in the sense that a lot of my work is taking someone who is completely well – (I mean, obviously they need an operation for cancer, for instance) – then I essentially remove the ability for them to sustain their own life. So, when you anaesthetise someone, you’re trying to achieve three things, it’s called the triad of anaesthesia. Essentially, you’re stopping them feeling pain. You’re stopping them being aware of what’s happening to them. And, for a lot of surgery, you need to stop them moving. Because even if you render someone anaesthetised, if you don’t paralyse them they could still potentially move and twitch even though they’re not aware of any discomfort. And particularly for body cavity surgery, if a body cavity is open, the body will try and protect itself by tensing the muscles to close the cavity. So obviously that would make surgery in the abdomen very, very difficult. So, for that situation, we need to paralyse people.
When we are asleep, we’re still aware of our surroundings. We’re just processing at very low level. Whereas we’re taking people deeper than that and then for major surgery anyway, would paralyse them. Some of the drugs we use will render people completely paralysed in terms of all muscle that is attached to bones or skeletal muscle within 30 seconds. So, once you’ve paralysed someone, you need to then take over their breathing, otherwise you know they would die from lack of oxygen. If somebody is very frail, you know, with a significant disease burden, then the margin of error is much less. They’re also slowing down bits of the brain that control heart rate and blood pressure and so forth. So, you can compromise things a bit there.
Anaesthetics is quite unique in that it is the only specialty where I am only responsible for one patient at a time, whereas someone like a cardiologist may come in and have a ward of 20 patients that they’re responsible for, I am only responsible for one patient. And when I am with that patient in theatre, I cannot physically be asked to do anything else. I can’t leave unless somebody of sufficient competence allows me to leave for a bathroom break or something.
Steve: That is fascinating. This is quite daunting, actually. I would hate to have your job! Haha. I’d be so stressed.
It’s not just, as you say, putting someone to sleep, but it’s bringing them back safely and making sure it all goes according to plan.
Ross: Yeah. And it’s a very unusual specialty because the surgeons need me and I need the surgeons. It’s a kind symbiotic relationship. And that’s the part I really enjoy, that I work in a team and form very strong relationships with the surgeons I work with regularly. And you’re kind of working together to get this patient through what can be major surgery.
Steve: What’s one of the most interesting sort of cases that you’ve had recently?
Ross: So obviously I need to be careful with patient confidentiality, but there is there’s a couple of patients recently who have needed their spleen out because their spleen was destroying their red blood cells and threatening their life.
A couple of these patients were getting blood transfusions every week and just their life was an absolute misery. And taking them to theatre is very high risk because their blood count is very low. The number of red cells that they have that can carry oxygen is very low because their spleen is just constantly destroying them. With these patients, we took their spleens out. And within two days, they were feeling better. Within three weeks, their blood count was approaching normal. Within six weeks, their blood count was completely back to normal. And they had the highest red cell count that they’ve had for years. I do enjoy that bit of it. Surgery is is an instant thing!. You cut the bad bit out and hopefully people get better. So those cases are pretty interesting as you get to see the benefit over time afterwards.
As an aside – there’s a lot of robotic surgery nowadays, which is his is a relatively new thing, where the surgeon actually sits at like a 3D console and has sort of electromechanical arms that they rest their arms in, which control the arms of a robotic device, which is doing the surgery inside the abdomen, which sounds quite weird, but it allows the surgeon a greater degree of control. We’re seeing really incredible results with that. You know that when I first started in anaesthetics a patient who might have been in hospital for two weeks after major bowel surgery, are now going home the next day, eat eating and drinking! So that’s pretty exciting to be involved in as well.
Steve: I feel like we’re living in the sci-fi movies I used to watch as a kid. So cool. Changing gears slightly, then. I mentioned that you’re an elder at our church. So, as much as you are a highly qualified, experienced specialist doing very niche scientific work in the medical field, you are also a Bible believing Christian!
Could you tell me very briefly how that how that came about, how you became a person of faith, and what that looks like for you today?
Ross: Yeah, so I was very fortunate. My parents were Christians, my grandparents were Christians, my aunts and uncles were Christians. And I was brought up and taken to church and my parents taught me about God. I think at a young age, you know, eight, I would say, to use ‘Christian language’, I placed my trust in the Lord. But I think, like many people brought up in that sort of environment, there’s a sense in which you don’t necessarily own it the way that maybe somebody coming to Christ later in life would do – that’s not at all to undermine childhood experiences in any way, shape or form. Certainly, for me, I think there was a greater ownership of that towards my later teens, through the age of 15 to 18. And then going to university is obviously quite a unique experience. I was moving out of home for the first time and meeting new people and various things. And so again there was another step there of reaffirming my faith. I remember my first day at Freshers’ Week sitting with a group of guys and basically making a very conscious decision to sort of say, okay, I’m a Christian.
And meeting people in my medical year for the first time, a guy came and talked about a Christian medical fellowship and if anybody wanted to come and speak to him afterwards so there were four or five of us who went up looking slightly sheepish amongst the 360 people to speak to him. So, for me, just having to make that decision consciously in a new environment was another step of taking ownership of what I believe for myself.
Steve: One thing that I love about you – as I’ve discovered in our discussions – is that you’re someone who thinks deeply about worldviews and how to make sense of the world. And so, it’s not like you’ve switched your mind off to have your faith (as some sceptics would claim one must do). I mean, it’s very integrated. What has your experience of being a Christian in your line of work been like?
Ross: Well, I’ve not experienced direct antagonism. Maybe believing that God created the world. You know, folk might think you’re a bit stupid and it’s a bit naive, but not necessarily antagonistic. I mean, there would still be a generalised assumption that the whole evolutionary framework is complete fact. So if you go to a national anaesthetic meeting or people are presenting things, you know, there will be a standard assumption that all we are is just the material we’re made of and we evolved to be like this or we evolved to be like that, you know. So, there’s that kind of assumption within science.
But I think that is maybe still a reflection of the ‘90s where people like Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, you know, some of these people were really coming to the fore and pushing materialism and atheism.
Steve: Let’s explore that idea a bit further. Surely, one might say, you’re just ignorant or a little bit stupid, or have to switch your brain off to believe in God and be a Christian. And surely the science and faith are in different silos. They don’t overlap. Along with that comes this idea that we don’t really need God, we have our science. We have our technology. You’ve just mentioned some of this amazing technology. So, isn’t God redundant?
That idea has been proliferated a lot. But lately we’re seeing that people are realizing that they need spirituality, and that maybe this question of God is actually something to pursue and investigate further.
What do you say to that person who would say that we don’t really need God?
Ross: Well, I think what’s interesting is – and this is probably something that I’ve been aware of in the last 10 years as maybe developing – that the ‘new atheism’ or the rise of the new atheism, for want of a better word, has not provided the answers that people hoped. And secularism has not necessarily provided the security and the answers that maybe people posited many years ago when they were saying, you know, “we don’t need God” and “God is dead”.
I think what’s interesting is, yes people are maybe open to more spirituality, but I sometimes view that almost as like a bit of a trend in the sense it’s like it’s their kind of spirituality because we’re very much a culture now of what works for you and I won’t interfere. You know what mean? “You know, have your life, that’s fine” kind of attitude.
Steve: Yes. The “you do you”, everyone just live their own truth attitude.
Ross: “You do you”, absolutely, that’s it. And I think there’s an openness to spirituality like that, you know, whether it’s Hinduism, Buddhism, or whatever blend someone puts together. I think there’s an openness but also a spirituality deficit there. But I don’t know if people, maybe they do privately, but I don’t know if people necessarily see that thing that’s missing or that bit of their life that they don’t feel connected to as anything other than, well, I’ll go and read a self-help book and I’ll start daily gratitude and I’ll meditate and I’ll go on long walks or stuff – all just self help really.
So I think that’s kind of sprung from a modernistic, materialistic view of the world that doesn’t fulfil all my needs. People adopt a kind of pseudo-spirituality while accepting that materialism in the sciences is also correct. There is no God, but I need to be in touch with nature in some sort of way.
Steve: Yeah, that is definitely the more prevalent kind of attitude generally speaking. But obviously Christianity, and the Christian worldview that arises from the Bible, makes pretty absolute claims. Claims that there is a God, a personable being who is all-powerful, who created ah the world, who created us to be special, and then himself entered into the world in the person of Jesus Christ, and then died by crucifixion and on the third day rose from the dead. All outlined in the biographies of his life in the Bible (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John). And along with that comes the possibility for us to be reconciled to God.
Now, I think that’s that that’s an amazing message of hope that we want the world to hear. But I think that this is maybe where people might stumble. It’s the absolute truth claims that if this is true, then by necessity, everything else isn’t true. And it means, as Jesus himself said, “I’m the way, the truth, the life, no one comes to the Father but through me”. And if that’s true, then, well, there is just one way to God. But it’s a way that’s legitimately open to all who would come to God and trust in Him (John 3:16).
So, as scientists, we want to be looking to find the truth, and we follow the evidence where it leads without being swayed by ideologies and external pressures. We want to, as best we can, say that this is where the evidence leads – in whatever discipline that might be.
So, in your opinion, what is the best evidence for your Christian faith actually being true?
Ross: So, I suppose there are lots of ways to look at this. You could take a scientific argument. You could take a philosophical argument. You could take a sociological argument, a theological argument. There’s lots of ways.
I think I think for me personally, aside from pure science, the thing that holds the most sway, and I have come back to this again and again, is that any worldview has to account for: where we came from, why we as a why we are as we are, and is there a solution to the problem of how we are as we are?
Sure, there are other ideas about how it all got started, but I believe Christianity explains where everything came from better. I think there may be other views that explain why we are as we are – and anybody that is completely honest would have to accept that human history, while there has been scientific and technological progress, there still remain massive fundamental issues with us. You know, it’s not like Star Trek with the Federation, everybody living together in happiness. You know, we are still broken, there’s something wrong. And so I think there are several worldviews that get you to that point, but to me, Christianity is the only one that logically makes sense of that, because what Christianity says is, yes, I know where you came from. Yes, I know there is a problem. And the solution to this is not within yourself. And that has appealed to me as a doctor, because patients, if someone has cancer, you know, somebody has to cut that out. The patient is not able to do that themselves. The problem is within them. They know what the problem is, but an external entity needs to deal with that problem within them. And the failure of other worldviews to me is that their solution to our problems is we do better. Or we meet a standard, or if we can just give ourselves a leg up, if we can climb the hill better, we will be successful. Whether that is a scientific view or another world religion’s view. The main issue is you fix yourself, whereas what makes the most sense to me is that Christianity is the only worldview that acknowledges the problem but offers a solution independent of the people that have the problem.
And so that that’s probably my framework for resting in Christianity. When, as all Christians do, you maybe doubt something or you wonder what’s going on, that the fundamental explanation of how we got here, why we are as we are, can this be fixed, is only sorted within a Christian worldview.
Steve: I 100% agree. I think you’ve framed that really well. One last question for you: young Christians who are looking to get into the sciences can sometimes feel a bit of apprehension because they’ve heard this sort of rumour that you have to either switch your mind off, or that science and faith are enemies. What would you say as an encouragement to them?
Ross: I would say that if you love science, do something scientific. And some of my richest experiences as a Christian were sitting in in my first two years of medical school, learning about the body. And just like David says in the Psalms, “we are fearfully and wonderfully made”. I think if you enter it with a sense of worship, then it will blow your mind what God has done. And I think it’s important to remember that some of the greatest scientific discoveries in our lifetime and lifetimes before having come from people who are seeking to worship God. I am confident that the Bible is defendable, that our worldview is defendable. And when I say defendable, I believe I can give a legitimate reason for everything I believe. That does not mean that people will believe that, that’s a different thing, because that is where they have to take faith and ownership of things themselves. But it is based on evidence and reason, which we can readily defend.
So, I don’t I don’t think anybody should be afraid of entering the sciences. I think you have to be aware that you’re if you are a Christian, that that will be challenged and that will either make or break you in that sense. But I think you can be refined and strengthened in trial. And I think if you enter it with a heart of worship then God will enrich your knowledge of Him by finding more and more things out because we are designed to do that. We’re designed to work things out and that’s how God made us. It’s an absolute joy to work things out and understand how something is designed. And if you have questions there’s great access Christians have to resources to navigate them. Organisations like Solas, philosophers like William Lane Craig, Discovery Institute and the like. We shouldn’t be afraid of philosophy, we shouldn’t be afraid of biology, we shouldn’t be afraid of physics, we certainly shouldn’t be afraid of chemistry or genetics, and Christianity is called to be in the public sphere. The Apostle Peter, in 1 Peter 3, calls us to give a defence and give an answer for what we believe.
Steve: Very good. I love that, thank you. I feel like we could keep going because I’m just loving chatting to you, but sadly that’s all that we have time for. It’s been really fascinating to speak with you, thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts with us.
Ross: No worries, Steve. Have a good day, my friend.
