The author spent his early years in rural Wales. By describing the treatments offered as he attempts to patch up bodies torn apart by weapons designed to inflict maximum damage, he knits a humane account of the many good people risking their lives to help those caught up in war, power and geopolitics. He has also volunteered in areas blighted by natural disasters, such as the earthquakes in Haiti and Nepal. The conflicts he has worked in are the twenty-first-century combat ridden geographies: Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Darfur, Congo, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, Gaza and Syria. It is a book that needs to be in every house.

His memoir is compassionate, inspiring, honest and powerful. For more than twenty-five years, Dr 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. In a growing field of medical memoirs War Doctor stands out for its purpose – to increase awareness of the reality of modern warfare on the individuals and communities directly affected. A wonderful journey that will leave you in floods of tears. At times, Nott’s riveting memoir reads like a travelogue of the world’s cruelty-he has volunteered in Afghanistan, Congo, Darfur, Gaza, Iraq, Libya, Sierra Leone, and Yemen-but it’s also an uplifting and deeply compassionate story about the brave medical professionals trying to combat evil and heal their patients despite the terrible circumstances.Ĭulminating in his recent trips to war-torn Syria-and the untold story of his efforts to help evacuate some 50,000 people from Aleppo- War Doctor is a heart-stopping and moving blend of medical memoir, personal journey, and nonfiction thriller that provides unforgettable, at times raw, insight into the human toll of war.Incredible non-fiction filled with so much humanity. War Doctor is his extraordinary story, encompassing his surgeries in nearly every major conflict zone since the end of the Cold War, as well as his struggles to return to a “normal” life and routine after each trip. Nott is now widely acknowledged to be the most experienced trauma surgeon in the world.

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 metropolitan hospital. The #1 internationally bestselling, gripping true story of a frontline trauma surgeon operating in the world's most dangerous war zonesįor more than 25 years, surgeon David Nott has volunteered in some of the world’s most dangerous conflict zones.

War Doctor by David Nott