Search all showsMedi-Culture Conversations
Episode 6: Sofia Laoudi
Host: Ilsa Jones
Medi-Culture Conversations is the official podcast of the Medi-Culture Festival, celebrating health, science and wellbeing in the heart of London Bridge this Spring. Across a series of short episodes, we go beyond the festival programme to explore the ideas, research and people behind the events. From gut health and nutrition to creativity, movement and laughter, each conversation uncovers the science and stories shaping how we understand wellbeing today.
Hosted by Ilsa Jones from Team London Bridge, this podcast delves into how culture, science and creativity can support our health and wellbeing. In this closing episode, Ilsa is joined by Sofia Laoudi from the Old Operating Theatre Museum and Herb Garret, one of London’s most extraordinary institutions, and a founding partner of the Medi-Culture Festival. Tucked into the attic of an 18th century church, the museum is home to Europe’s oldest surviving operating theatre, and to stories of medicine, surgery and healing that stretch back centuries.
Together they explore what surgery looked like before modern anaesthetics and antiseptics, the murky world of the bodysnatchers who supplied London’s anatomy schools, and why sitting with this difficult history still matters today. They also reflect on what the Medi-Culture Festival has meant to the museum, and why a place rooted so deeply in the past feels more relevant than ever.