BOOK REVIEWS
Will have you deep in grip from first page to last
THE dictionary defines the word “hero” as: a person, typically a man, who is admired for their courage or outstanding achievements.
David Nott is a hero, he ticks both definition boxes and then some. He is a Welsh consultant surgeon, specialising in general and vascular surgeon. He was bestowed with an OBE in the 2012 Birthday Honours and in 2016 he received the Robert Burns Humanitarian Awards and the Pride of Britain Award.
I do not think that he would be comfortable with the hero label. His book, War Doctor, tells his story and is the indelible affirmation that in Nott’s case, the tag is wholly appropriate.
“For reasons I will try to explore in this book, I have for over two decades now spent much of my time volunteering to go to dangerous places to help those who have been affected by events that are, very often, utterly beyond their control. I have ventured into people’s wars many times – in Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Liberia, Chad, the Ivory Coast, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Gaza and Syria to mention a few.”
Driven 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.
War Doctor tells the extraordinary story of Nott’s beginnings, the triggers that led him on his career path and to the medical humanitarian work that drives him: “When I get a calls from an aid agency, my heart begins to race, and I develop an irrepressible urge to remove any obstacle that might prevent me from going. Wherever I am, and whatever I am doing, the desire to go is always intense and almost overwhelming.”
The book is not for sensitive readers. The life-threatening situations in which Nott finds himself and the life-saving trauma surgeries he performs are described in detail. I didn’t expect to be enthralled by the medical details as much as I was. They are fascinating and inspiring.
War Doctor had me deep in its grip from first page to last.
It is an extraordinary read about an extraordinary man, David Nott writes with ease and without the melodramatics. He tells it like it is and lets the facts exude their own sense of drama.
The book’s afterword is written by Nott’s wife Eleanor, who now runs the David Nott Foundation, a charity which finances and organises training in disaster medicine. She says of her husband: “David embodies the truly heroic, if we but allow our heroes the vulnerability and humanity that make them real people.”
Her final phrase in the afterword is succinct, beautifully worded and very touching: “My extraordinary, complicated, beloved David.”
David Nott is a courageous and inspiring man and War Doctor is a rich and wonderful book, one that I unreservedly recommend.