Mark Hamilton is a doctor with a difference and, in his new TV show, he hopes to make a difference in our lives too, he tells Paul O'Doherty
Mark Hamilton is not your typical doctor, with his comfortable casual shirts, tee-shirts, woolly jumpers and jeans. "I'm most comfortable being scruffy, really. And some people might say I need my hair cut as well. My hair's a sort of shaggy, surfer-type look."
He's also "a petrol head", who drives his "red on the bottom and creamy-white on the top" 1967 Volkswagen camper van - "the old hippy style" - everywhere, whether it's to work in Manchester, down to London to record his radio show, or to festivals during the summer, where he often DJs. Living in Manchester and working his shifts in A&E at Hope Hospital, in Salford, Hamilton is also developing a useful sideline as the doctor-in-the-house on BBC Radio One's The Sunday Surgery, and is also a regular contributor to Channel 4's Big Brother' s Little Brother.
This week, Hamilton makes his debut as the resident health expert on RTÉ's new six-part series, How Long Will I Live?
The programme takes six volunteers and calculates "how long will I live?" based on their health, fitness and food intake.
Over eight weeks, Hamilton tries to improve their life expectancy with a range of change-of-life programmes devised by him and a team of health specialists.
"The participants aren't extreme cases - they have quite common problems, but as it turned out, most of them saw some striking changes in a short period of time. I was surprised, but pleased at the same time, that we were able to show what we could do in eight weeks.
"To begin with, I had a chat with each person. They knew what the problems were themselves and were willing to have a go at changing. They had a medical to see if there were any detectable signs of disease and, in a few of them, there were some worrying signs but no actual diseases as yet.
"That was the whole idea - it's maintaining health rather than correcting illness.
"In Britain, we have our National Health Service and it's probably better to call it the National Illness Service because it treats illnesses - it's like fishing people out of the river instead of trying to stop them jumping in in the first place."
Hamilton believes modest exercise, altering what you eat and changing one or two things about your lifestyle can be hugely beneficial.
"And, I wanted it to be something they would continue when we left. It had to be something they enjoyed and I went with them to demonstrate that I wouldn't expect them to do something that I wouldn't do myself.
"So I went swimming with one of the guys, played golf with one of the ladies, and went ballroom dancing, surfing and cycling."
Hamilton is pretty fit himself, with an interest in rugby, motor-racing and martial arts.
"I've done jujitsu in the past and I do kung fu at the minute. That's how I keep myself fit."
He views the programme as being very important, not just in calculating the amount of years we all have left but also in the quality of our lives."We are supposedly the only species who know we're going to die and we have distraction techniques and terror management strategies to stop us thinking about it all the time. How Long Will I Live? acknowledges the fact that we will die sometime and it's a case of grasping the few years we have left."
The team used "longevity calendars or calculators" to estimate potential lifespans, and within the eight weeks, it noticed significant changes in life-expectancy for the participants.
"In some cases, there was a striking difference in terms of number of years - as much as 20 years. One of the volunteers lost two stone over the eight weeks through walking and swimming. He also gave up smoking.
"The other point I'd like to emphasise on the show is the quality of life. If you're smoker, drinker or stressed, you can develop illnesses that will make your later years full of chronic illness."
Originally, from Bangor, Co Down, Hamilton was always interested in "how things work and how things are put together". Having considered engineering, he realised he was more interested in the human body. "So I went to Manchester and studied medicine. I qualified in 1994 and ended up specialising in accident and emergency."
University in Northern Ireland wasn't a consideration. "I got the feeling I needed to expand a bit and broaden my horizons and, as much as I'm proud to be from Northern Ireland, I felt I needed to meet different types of people.
"The whole sectarianism thing just got to me. It was the whole Catholic/Protestant thing; even though it wasn't a big factor in my life, there was always that undercurrent."
Hamilton loves the complexities that A&E offers, but gets bored and needs constant stimulation. Working for the BBC raised his profile and further work has followed, including appearances on Channel 4's Richard and Judy show.
• How Long Will I Live? begins on Wednesday, January 4th, RTÉ One.