War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line
£7.20£10.40 (-31%)
A powerful and intensely moving memoir by an NHS surgeon who volunteered in war zones, operating under the most extreme circumstances.
‘Brave, compassionate and inspiring – it left me in floods of tears’ – Adam Kay, author of This Is Going to Hurt
For more than twenty-five years, David Nott has taken unpaid leave from his job as a general and vascular surgeon with the NHS to volunteer in some of the world’s most dangerous war zones. From Sarajevo under siege in 1993, to clandestine hospitals in rebel-held eastern Aleppo, he has carried out life-saving operations and field surgery in the most challenging conditions, and with none of the resources of a major London teaching hospital.
The conflicts he has worked in form a chronology of twenty-first-century combat: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. But he has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal.
Driven both by compassion and passion, the desire to help others and the thrill of extreme personal danger, he is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world. But as time went on, David Nott began to realize that flying into a catastrophe – whether war or natural disaster – was not enough. Doctors on the ground needed to learn how to treat the appalling injuries that war inflicts upon its victims. Since 2015, the foundation he set up with his wife, Elly, has disseminated the knowledge he has gained, training other doctors in the art of saving lives threatened by bombs and bullets.
War Doctor is his extraordinary story.
‘One of the most brutally vivid evocations of modern warfare that you will read . . . superb, unforgettable, simply written and painfully clear’ – Sunday Times
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Additional information
| Publisher | Main Market edition (9 Jan. 2020), Picador |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 368 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1509837051 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1509837052 |
| Reading age | 18 years and up |
| Dimensions | 13 x 2.2 x 19.7 cm |
by Mr B
Engaging and interesting book. Where humanity and inhumanity meet and volunteering to work there. Read it in a few sittings. If war, poverty, or gory details of operations keep you awake, then possibly not bedtime reading for you…
by ian christopher paskin
Honest and Gritty ,a humanitarian view of conflict and its consequences.A must read!
by Scotty
It’s probably fairly pointless to write another review of a book that has been rated 5* by 90% of its readership but here goes.
In terms of such mundane things as quality of prose there is nothing exceptional about this book – David Nott is no more than a competent writer (to be fair he doesn’t pretend to be otherwise) and was probably the beneficiary of some effective editing by his publishers. The story does not unfold entirely chronologically, which in principle is fine but some of the fast forwards and rewinds seemed a bit arbitrary. There is plenty of fairly graphic medical procedure to contend with: for the lay reading a fairly fine line between condescending simplicity and bewildering complexity is pretty successfully adhered to throughout.
There are two things that elevate this book, in my opinion. The first is the extraordinary subject matter. For many older readers I suppose our primary source of information about surgery in warzones comes from watching episodes of M*A*S*H. Some of the recurring themes from that show, such as the intense skill and personal sacrifice of medical practitioners on the front line as they risk their lives on a daily basis, combined with the brutality and randomness of conflict, come across very well in David Nott’s account of his own experiences. The second is the extraordinary nature of the man himself. David Nott is clearly a brilliant general surgeon but, to borrow a word used by someone close to him, also a complicated individual. His humanity and compassion shine through as he describes some of the operations that left the largest imprint on his mind – what I particularly liked is the even-handed way in which dwelt equally on triumphs and disasters. His parents can truly say of him: You are a Man, my son.
by Andy, Truro
What a man. The things he has done, and lived to tell the tale. And there is a girl alive in Leicester, because of him; and many, many more people.
by Syed
One of my favourite books of all time. I couldn’t put it down because it just grasps you with the stories being told…brilliant!
by David
I loved this book. I related to it and found myself reliving his experiences. I have not read a book as exciting as this.
by Janie U
I love a good medical memoir and was recommended to this book by a friend who went to see David Nott talking about the book – she then read it and the book exceeded her already high expectations.
It’s a fairly standard length, at just over 350 pages and is split into 13 chapters plus preface and afterword (often important in memoirs).
The preface is a good start for the book and gives the reader an introduction to the man.
I first picked up this book over a year ago and couldn’t engage with it at all. I suspect that was due to a general lack of concentration at the start of the pandemic rather than the quality of the book so I was keen to give it another go and this time I found myself hooked at the start.
David Nott’s experiences as a surgeon in the middle of war zones are varied and extensive. His stories give a very personal view into many of the conflicts around the world within the last 20 years that many readers will only have seen on their TV screens.
As he moves from country to country, there is a danger of the reader becoming overwhelmed and potentially desensitised. Much of the detail is similar in each assignment but it felt that there was much more to tell in each place.
I wondered if he were trying to whizz through each location and it may have been better to slow down and give us more about the man behind the surgery (possibly splitting the book into two volumes).
There are any stories about the people he meets as colleagues and patients. This makes the experience of war feel very personal as we look at how it changes the lives of everyone in contact with conflict.
There is no doubt that this is an incredible man who does amazingly unselfish work but I wanted more about the man rather than just the reports of job after job.