War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

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I liked how the author spoke in detail of the operations, I was a bit lost, I don't know more than the basic anatomy and roughly which organs do what, and this was detailed and very bloody, but interesting too. I liked hearing about the patients and the little he knew of their lives and countries, especially the Syrians and Syria for which he has a great deal of affection. One intensive care ward containing four patients with all modern life=support equipment was run by a single nurse who continually noted all vital signs and urine etc outputs. Each bed had two video cameras on it, and with her data and those pictures, and Arab-American doctors in the US monitored the ward 24 hours a day and directed the treatment. I was very impressed. David Nott is an inspirational figure for many young doctors. He went into the war to treat patients and trained many Doctors treating the people injured in war. His team of doctors had played a major role in helping the injured war victims in Turkey, Gaza, Yemen, and Iraq. All these experiences helped him to acquire impeccable skills as a trauma surgeon.

he came across as sounding flippant when discussing his dangerous flying mishaps (almost killing those on board!), his reasons for being removed from MSF, and even when he missed his mother's symptoms which led to her death; While some people may question the effectiveness of such an approach (mobilising significant resources to save a single life when they could have served a larger number of people), there is no way you can valorise the saving of a life. To observers who are unrelated to victims of war, they may feel that the quantifying of lives saved is an important metric. Yet, to the victims themselves, they each have only one life, and can only hold on to that one chance of survival. The author was cogent in explaining the important role of war doctors and tells us the significance of acquiring the necessary expertise before going into the battlefields as a war doctor. Ability to work with minimal resources is the most essential quality that a war doctor should possess. He also tells us the importance of having a strong mind as the patients we have to deal with due to the war injuries are entirely different from those we regularly treat in hospitals and clinics. In early 2016, I was over at a family friend's house for dinner. I'm going to call them the D's for short. Mr and Mrs D are doctors based in central London. One is a professor for the Royal College of Surgeons, the other is a senior consultant at the royal free and Chelsea and Westminster hospitals.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. Over time, the physical and mental exertion can take a toll on the doctors themselves. It is not easy to grapple with the incessant presence of death, especially the horrifying and disfiguring injuries inflicted upon children. It is equally challenging to navigate the return to normality as the imbalance between the two worlds is often too harsh. Consequently, partaking in such missions requires a high level of self-awareness and knowing when to seek help to recover from the after-effects.

From pulling bomb detonators out of legs to pulling dead babies out of pregnant 9-year olds, this man has seen some truly horrific things.wars most affect those who are worst equipped to deal with them: people who are poor or disenfranchised, living in inadequate or unsanitary conditions with few of the amenities we take for granted in the West. War can make an already difficult existence impossible. Nott freely admits that not only did he truly wish to help others on these volunteer missions, but that he also got a charge while "living on the edge"; Doing humanitarian work in a warzone is all kinds of crazy and leaves the volunteers with PTSD for years afterwards.

I get that some books are written primarily as a device to "build brand" for some combination of booking more speaking/media gig, to raise money for a charity or drum up leads for a business. That's fine, I don't inherently have anything against these sorts of books. However, after finishing the War Doctor, I might start to actively avoid them in the future. Dr D told me about how in Syria, David Nott was held at gunpoint when operating on the brother of a member of ISIS. Nott's wife, Elly, discussed how they established the David Nott Foundation, a non-profit UK charity which provides surgical training to those working in war and/or natural disaster zones. He even treated Osama Bin Ladin’s wife for fibroids….. before Bin Laden became the household name for terror after 9/11. As a surgeon myself, I can only look on what he has achieved with complete awe, overwhelmed by his heroism and compassion as much as by the world’s cruelty -- Henry Marsh, author of Do No Harm, New Statesman

Praise

The leader came up to the operating table and peered into the man’s wound to see what we were doing. The rest of the group milled around the room menacingly – a few sat on the floor while others leaned on equipment and made themselves comfortable. It took us another hour to finish the operation. Usually, there is a lot of banter in the operating theatre but today we were silent. As we neared the end they all left, apart from the leader, who stayed until the last suture was in place. Afterwards, I found myself feeling confused and lost. I had saved the life of someone who might go on to commit terrible crimes. Did that make me complicit, somehow? Perhaps it did. And yet, I still firmly believe that it was my duty to save his life. It's all of the things that would have made Nott's book that wasn't just him navel gazing. War Doctor was our book club's June read, and in our discussion, a big question was: if you're telling your own story: just why would you present it like this. To Dr Nott, saving innocent victims of conflict, a life at a time, is where he finds the most intrinsic sense of purpose. While it may seem quite preposterous to some people that a doctor living in a first-world country with a stable income and secure life would be willing to plunge himself into astronomical danger without renumeration, I find that I can identify with his choices. They reveal that the pursuits that hold the greatest allure are not always profit-driven, for money alone can never grant you true happiness. This is a book of extraordinary honesty . . . enlightening, sobering, compelling. It is a marvellous read, and education in itself -- Pat Ashworth * Church Times *