Health & Lifestyle

Who IS the ultimate TV doctor? How careers of Dr Hilary, Dr Amir Khan, Dr Zoe Williams and Dr Ranj vary

Resident GPs on daytime television offer to help the nation to tackle their medical woes.

Dr Hilary Jones, Dr Amir Khan and Dr Zoe Williams are just a few of the medics who share vital health advice, from the signs of skin cancer and health hazards around the home, to Covid symptoms and the menopause. 

But how does their experience compare?

Here, MailOnline compares the careers of some of the UK’s most famous celebrity doctors. 

Dr Hilary Jones

Completed medical school: 1976

Number of years working as a doctor or GP: 10

Best known for: Health editor role at Good Morning Britain

Dr Hilary Jones, 70, has been a recognisable face on our TV screens for more than 30 years. Image of Dr Hilary on GMB

Dr Hilary Jones, 70, has been a recognisable face on our TV screens for more than 30 years. Image of Dr Hilary on GMB

Dr Hilary Jones worked as a GP before taking his health knowledge to daytime TV. 

The 70-year-old has been a familiar face on our TV screens for more than 30 years. 

The father-of-five has been seen on shows including GMTV, Daybreak, Good Morning Britain and Lorraine on ITV. 

But, before his grand TV appearances, he trained at The Royal Free Hospital in London and became a qualified doctor in 1976 after his six-year medical degree.

After qualifying, he worked for a year as the only doctor on the most isolated inhabited island in the world, Tristan da Cunha in the South Atlantic Ocean. 

He then moved to another island in 1981, but this time in Shetland to work as a troubleshooting GP and emergency doctor for the oil industry.

Less than 10 years after qualifying as a doctor, he became a GP trainer in the early 1980s. 

Dr Hilary also worked as a medic specialising in eye health, and assisted on glaucoma and cataract extraction procedures.

He made his move to presenting in 1986, a decade after qualifying, making educational medical TV programmes for British Medical TV.

He and Lorraine Kelly were the first presenters signed by GMTV.

Now, he is the health editor for ITV’s Breakfast television.  

Dr Amir Khan

Completed medical school: 2009

Number of years working as a doctor or GP: 11

Best known for: ITV’s resident doctor for Lorraine since 2010

Bradford-born GP, Dr Amir Khan, is often seen on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain giving daytime viewers health advice. Here he is pictured on the Channel 5 show GPs Behind Closed Doors

Bradford-born GP, Dr Amir Khan, is often seen on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain giving daytime viewers health advice. Here he is pictured on the Channel 5 show GPs Behind Closed Doors 

The Bradford-born GP is often seen on Lorraine and Good Morning Britain giving daytime viewers health advice.

For the past decade, he has made TV appearances on shows such as ITV’s Lorraine and Good Morning Britain. He has also presented one-off documentary Dr Amir’s Sugar Crash in 2021, which sees him attempt to turn himself into a sugar addict by eating vast quantities of processed sugar. 

He appeared on You Are What You Eat as a GP helping to transform some of the UK’s most disastrous eaters.

Dr Amir has hosted other shows including The Science of Sleep in 2019, How to Lose a Stone in a Month in 2019 and Channel 5’s The Great British Urine Test in 2020.

On top of being a TV doctor, he still works as an NHS GP in West Yorkshire, where he has been based for about a decade.

He is also an author of two books, The Doctor Will See You Now which explores the highs and lows of being a doctor and How Not To Have An Arranged Marriage’.

Before his TV fame, he studied medicine at the University of Liverpool in 2004 and fully qualified as a GP in 2009.

He is considered a specialist in women’s and children’s health, type 2 diabetes, minor surgery and joint injections.

Dr Zoe Williams

Completed medical school: 2007

Number of years working as a doctor or GP: 16

Best known for: Resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning

Dr Zoe Williams, 43, although now a GP based in London with regular appearances on ITV daytime show This Morning, pictured, she had her first experience on TV with the 2009 reboot of Sky 1's Gladiators

Dr Zoe Williams, 43, although now a GP based in London with regular appearances on ITV daytime show This Morning, pictured, she had her first experience on TV with the 2009 reboot of Sky 1’s Gladiators

NHS GP Dr Zoe Williams paved her media career on her passion for fitness and health after graduating medical school in 2007.

The 43-year-old, from Burnley, Lancashire had her first experience on TV with the 2009 reboot of Sky 1’s Gladiators.

She is now a GP based in London with regular appearances on ITV daytime show This Morning.

Dr Williams has presented BBC shows including Trust Me I am a Doctor and a Horizon episode about the contraceptive pill.

The media medic has also had several non-clinical GP roles, including acting as Public Health England’s lead clinical champion for their physical activity postgraduate education programme and RCGP clinical priority of physical activity and lifestyle.

In addition, she has also been the Southwark CCG clinical lead for lifestyle medicine and social prescribing and a director and founding member of the British Society of Lifestyle Medicine.

Dr Williams also helps young people from challenging backgrounds by using activity programmes to improve their health and wellbeing, through her not-for-profit organisation Fit4LifeCIC, which was founded in 2017.

Dr Ranj Singh

Completed medical school: 2003

Number of years working as a doctor or GP: 20

Best known for: Resident doctor on ITV’s This Morning

44-year-old NHS pediatrician, Dr Ranju Singh is well-known for his decade stint on ITV's This Morning as their resident doctor

44-year-old NHS pediatrician, Dr Ranju Singh is well-known for his decade stint on ITV’s This Morning as their resident doctor

The 44-year-old NHS pediatrician is well-known for his decade stint on ITV’s This Morning as their resident doctor.

As well as appearing on a range of TV shows from the One Show to The Weakest link, he also co-created and hosted the CBeebies series, Get Well Soon, which sees Dr Ranj examine puppet patients in hospital and treating them for various aliments. 

In 2018, he even swapped his scrubs for sequins when he competed in Strictly Come Dancing.

But the BAFTA award winning TV presenter still works as a locum pediatric consultant in London.

Born in Medway Kent, he trained at Guy’s King’s & St. Thomas’ School of Medicine in London and graduated as a doctor in 2003.

On top of his TV career and locum shifts, he has also become a Sunday Times best-selling author with his books How To Be A Boy And Do It Your Own Way, How To Grow Up (and Feel Amazing) and The No-Worries Guide For Boys, as well as two children’s school books with Oxford University Press.

Dr Sara Kayat

Completed medical school: 2009

Number of years working as a doctor or GP: 14

Best known for: GPs Behind Closed Doors on Channel 5

Dr Sara Kayat is a GP at Gray's Inn Medical Group in London as carrying out private consultations. Before this she worked at Balham Park Surgery which was featured on the show GPs Behind Closed Doors on Channel 5

Dr Sara Kayat is a GP at Gray’s Inn Medical Group in London as carrying out private consultations. Before this she worked at Balham Park Surgery which was featured on the show GPs Behind Closed Doors on Channel 5

Dr Sara Kayat is usually seen offering her expertise on shows such as ITV’s This Morning, The Truth About series on BBC1 and Channel 5’s The Wright Stuff.

She was even marooned on a desert island for four weeks in Channel 4’s Bear Grylls Celebrity Island in 2017.

But off-screen Dr Kayat is still a practising NHS GP at Gray’s Inn Medical Group in London.

Before this, she worked at Balham Park Surgery which was featured on the show GPs Behind Closed Doors on Channel 5.

Aside to her TV repertoire, she has a long list of medical qualifications.

She graduated with a medical degree and a science degree in 2009 from King’s College London, before becoming a junior doctor at Guy’s and St Thomas’ hospital followed by Worthing Hospital.

Later, she trained as a GP for three years at St George’s Hospital in London.

She also has a Diploma in the Faculty of Family Planning as well as an accreditation for minor surgery and joint injections.

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