Alexander Gerald van Hoogenhouck-Tulleken and Christoffer Rodolphe van Hoogenhouck-Tulleken (born 18 August 1978), known as "Dr. Xand" and "Dr. Chris", are British doctors, television presenters and identical twin brothers. They are best known for presenting the children's series '' Operation Ouch!''. Chris has become well known for his two-part television special for

BBC One BBC One is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It is the corporation's Flagship (broadcasting), flagship network and is known for broadcasting mainstream programming, which includes BBC News ...

entitled ''The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs''. Xand has also presented shows without his brother.

Family and early life

Chris and Xand van Tulleken were born to Anthony van Tulleken, an industrial designer, and his wife Kit, a publisher. Their younger brother is the film director Jonathan van Tulleken. They are descended from Dutch Rear-Admiral (1762–1851; originally Jan , of a family traced back to the fifteenth century, who changed his name in 1822 and was raised to the nobility in 1842 with the rank of ''

Jonkheer (female equivalent: ; french: Écuyer; en, Squire) is an honorific in the Low Countries denoting the lowest rank within the nobility. In the Netherlands, this in general concerns a prefix used by the untitled nobility. In Belgium, this is the ...

''). The van Tulleken twins were educated at Hill House preparatory school, then

King's College School King's College School, also known as Wimbledon, KCS, King's and KCS Wimbledon, is a public school in Wimbledon, southwest London, England. The school was founded in 1829 by King George IV, as the junior department of King's College London and ...

, an

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independe ...

day school for boys in Wimbledon, southwest London, followed by St Peter's College (Chris) and

Somerville College Somerville College, a constituent college of the University of Oxford in England, was founded in 1879 as Somerville Hall, one of its first two women's colleges. Among its alumnae have been Margaret Thatcher, Indira Gandhi, Dorothy Hodgkin, ...

(Xand) at the

University of Oxford The University of Oxford is a collegiate research university in Oxford, England. There is evidence of teaching as early as 1096, making it the oldest university in the English-speaking world and the world's second-oldest university in contin ...

Life and career

Both Chris and Xand van Tulleken presented

Channel 4 Channel 4 is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network operated by the state-owned enterprise, state-owned Channel Four Television Corporation. It began its transmission on 2 November 1982 and was established to provide a four ...

's ''Medicine Men go Wild'', and

BBC Two BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...

's '' Trust Me, I'm A Doctor'' alongside

Michael Mosley Michael Hugh Mosley (22 March 1957 – 5 June 2024) was a British television and radio journalist, producer, presenter and writer who worked for the BBC from 1985 until his death. He presented television programmes on biology and medicine a ...

. Chris was the expedition doctor for

's ''Operation Iceberg'', and has appeared in ''Top Dogs: Adventures in War, Sea and Ice'' (

BBC 2 BBC Two is a British free-to-air public broadcast television network owned and operated by the BBC. It covers a wide range of subject matter, with a remit "to broadcast programmes of depth and substance" in contrast to the more mainstream ...

), ''Holiday Hit Squad'' (

), ''Museum of Life'' (

), ''The Secret Life of Twins'' (

), as well as ''

Celebrity Mastermind ''Celebrity Mastermind'' is a celebrity version of ''Mastermind'', a British television quiz show broadcast by BBC television. It began in 2002 as a one-off special, expanding to the current arrangement of 10 episodes, broadcast during December a ...

'' and ''

The Wright Stuff ''The Wright Stuff'' is a British television chat show which was hosted by former tabloid journalist Matthew Wright from 2000 until 2018. It aired on Channel 5 on weekday mornings from 9:15 to 11:15am. The series characterised itself as "Bri ...

''. Chris was also doctor to a team led by

Bruce Parry Bruce Parry (born 17 March 1969) is an English documentarian, indigenous rights advocate, author, explorer, trek leader and former Royal Marines commando officer. He employs an ethnographic style and a form of participant observation for his doc ...

which recreated the 1911 race to the South Pole in the

BBC #REDIRECT BBC Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...

documentary ''Blizzard: Race to the Pole''. The brothers presented ''What's The Right Diet for You? A

Horizon The horizon is the apparent line that separates the surface of a celestial body from its sky when viewed from the perspective of an observer on or near the surface of the relevant body. This line divides all viewing directions based on whether ...

Special''. Chris van Tulleken was named as an emerging British talent in 'The Brit List 2013' by

ShortList A short list or shortlist is a list of candidates for a job, prize, award, political position, etc., that has been reduced from a longer list of candidates (sometimes via intermediate lists known as "long lists"). The length of short lists varie ...

magazine. In 2015, the pair presented another ''Horizon'' episode, titled ''Is Binge Drinking Really That Bad?'', in which Chris and his identical twin brother Xand tested the effects of drinking moderate amounts of alcohol daily (Chris) and bingeing weekly (Xand). Chris and Xand appeared on Series 5 of ''

Hacker Time ''Hacker Time'' is a British children's sketch comedy talk show, broadcast by CBBC, starring Hacker T. Dog, a character from Scoop. In each episode, Hacker interviews a celebrity, and plays games and the show also includes recurring segments, su ...

''. In 2016, alarmed by the steep rise in prescription medicine in Britain and dubious as to its efficacy, Chris completed a television show for BBC One called ''The Doctor Who Gave Up Drugs''. It was a two-part social experiment in which he aimed to take over part of a GP surgery and attempt to find practical ways to treat patients and stop patients' prescription pills. In January–February 2019, they presented a documentary series called ''The Twinstitute'', repeated in 2020. In ''Surviving the Virus: My Brother & Me'', after contracting

COVID-19 Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is a contagious disease caused by a virus, the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The first known case was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. The disease quickl ...

, Xand was left with an irregular heartbeat.

Personal life

It was revealed in an episode of '' Operation Ouch!'' (Series 6, episode 9) that Chris van Tulleken has a wife and a daughter. His wife Dinah gave birth to a second daughter in June 2020. In a 2016 episode of ''

'' titled ''How to Find Love Online'', Xand stated that he was single and a user of online dating. He has a son from a previous relationship.

Humanitarian aid

Until February 2018, Alexander and Christoffer were patrons and board members of the medical aid and healthcare charity Doctors of the World UK, which is a member of the international

Médecins du Monde ''Médecins du monde'' (MdM; ), or Doctors of the World, is an international humanitarian organization which provides emergency and long-term medical care to the world's most vulnerable people. It also advocates to end health inequities. It was f ...

network. In 2015, Alexander and Christoffer ran the

London Marathon The London Marathon is an annual marathon held in London, United Kingdom, and is the 2nd largest annual road race in the UK, after the Great North Run in Newcastle. Founded by athletes Chris Brasher and John Disley in 1981, it is typically held ...

for Doctors of the World, raising over £3,400. Xand van Tulleken was a patron of the medical aid organisation

Medical Emergency Relief International Medical Emergency Relief International (Merlin) is a former British international non-governmental health charity which sends medical experts to global emergencies. In July 2013, Merlin merged with Save the Children. History Merlin was founded ...

(Merlin), which merged with

Save the Children The Save the Children Fund, commonly known as Save the Children, is an international non-governmental organization established in the United Kingdom in 1919 to improve the lives of children through better education, health care, and economic ...

in 2013, and reported for

in the aftermath of

Cyclone Nargis Extremely Severe Cyclonic Storm Nargis ( my, နာဂစ်, ur, نرگس ) was an extremely destructive and deadly tropical cyclone that caused the worst natural disaster in the recorded history of Myanmar during early May 2008. The cyclone ...

Burma Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...

, in 2008.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Tulleken, Christoffer 1978 births Living people Alumni of Somerville College, Oxford Alumni of St Peter's College, Oxford Alumni of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine British identical twins British television presenters People educated at King's College School, London