A review by nickymaund
War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line by David Nott

5.0

Warning - this is not for the faint hearted. This is a warts and all (in some places very graphic) telling of the horrors or war. Nott covers his work responding to natural disasters, but it’s the wars that have most of the focus, and rightly so. You follow Nott’s journey as a child to becoming one of the leading surgeons in emergency trauma. You meet the people he works with as a volunteer for the various medical charities that respond to these crises, and the patients/situations that are most memorable. And it’s just heartbreaking. The brutality, the pain, and horror. In war, it’s the civilians that suffer the worst. Nott ably retells of the dangers he and his fellow volunteers, the natives and those affected by war experience and he’s very frank with his own struggles adjusting to the triviality of life back home. This is written really well and Nott, as narrator, adds his personal touch to his story that makes it pack an even more powerful punch.