By: GIAN VOLPICELLI
Shafi Ahmed will be speaking at WIRED Health 2016 on 29 April in London. From helping humans live longer to understanding the brain, WIRED Health will hear from the innovators transforming this critical sector.
In his office on the first floor of The Royal London Hospital, Dr Shafi Ahmed keeps a classic Polaroid instant camera. Every time he meets a new trainee surgeon, Ahmed draws the camera out and takes a picture of them.
“The pic is printed straight away, and I put it in my diary,” says Ahmed, a jovial 47-year-old with a mellow voice and an Apple Watch around his wrist. “Then I ask the trainees what they think they’ll be doing in ten to twenty years, and I write it under their picture.”
If you wonder what Ahmed thinks he’ll be doing in ten years, look no farther than his desk, currently piled with several unassembled Google Cardboards. In Ahmed’s future, and in his vision of the future of surgery at large, VR will feature prominently.
