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Consultant colorectal surgeon Danielle Collins faces a challenging case at Edinburgh’s Western General Hospital. Her patient has an aggressive tumour that has doubled in size in two months, and without surgery, its spread is likely to be fatal. But the tumour is in an extremely awkward position, attached to four different organs. Removing the tumour means removing part of each of them, making this is the most radical surgery that Danielle would consider performing.

Meanwhile, consultant vascular surgeon Orwa Falah is taking on a case so high risk that one in ten patients don’t survive. It is the biggest operation possible in a human being: the complete replacement of the body’s largest artery, the aorta, which supplies all the critical abdominal organs.