War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott

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

About the Publisher

Picador

Picador

Picador publishes outstanding international writing, fiction and non-fiction, in both hardback and paperback, and has numerous prize winners on its list. Picador has established a reputation for literary fiction with a broad commercial appeal, groundbreaking non-fiction, (particularly, reportage, literary biography and memoir) and a formidable poetry list, which has consistently won many of the major prizes.

Book information

ISBN:    9781509837052

Publisher:    Pan Macmillan

Imprint:    Picador

Pub date:    09 Jan 2020

DEWEY:    617.092

DEWEY edition:    23

Language:    English

Number of pages:    359

Weight:    268g

Height:    197mm

Width:    130mm

Spine width:    22mm