My mother's great line was, Grasp the nettle with two hands, girl, because if you don't somebody else will.

We're not able to do anything about the bomb, but we can do something about the results. We're able to heal the people - not all of them. Some people died. But we're able to heal people, so we're doing something positive. And that's a great motivator.

One of the things I say is I don't think any of us should be average. Everybody's got a gift. The chance of finding your gift and then sharing it. There's just no room in this world to be average, you need to be the best you can be.

I used to be squeamish a long time ago and I guess, secretly squeamish, no... but I have a huge respect for the human body and what we do and so I think it's a massive privilage for people to let you operate on them. And I used to be very "OOOH GOSH! THIS IS BAD!" but to see people bleeding and suffering is bad and I will never get over that, but being able to do something about it, means that you're no longer squeamish.

You don't do anybody any favours by being less than you are.

I can do something about people who need me, who have been injured. So the biggest thing about being a doctor is my education and training means I can help people to reduce their suffering and that's what being a doctor is, to reduce suffering and to try to improve the life of people who have been injured.

I think plans failing is a really interesting question. I've been on a long journey. I'm 54 now and that's seriously old. I hope I still have heaps of years to go. Every day there's new success and some failures. But believe you me you can always get better - but things don't always go how you'd expect all the time. What you have to do is pick yourself up and keep going. That's part of life.