2019 non-fiction. Nott is a general and vascular surgeon who uses his
leave to volunteer with MSF in combat and disaster zones.
This is another Book of the Week condensation – though, like
the Marie Colvin biography, since it seems to be mostly individual
incidents it doesn't appear to suffer badly from the condensation. (I
gather that the book has more talk about Nott's work outside the
immediate environment of the operating theatre, but that's entirely
elided here.) I'd also like to know whether in the full book there are
any incidents in which Nott lost a patient.
The writing is generally pedestrian, but competent, and Nott reads
reasonably well. The descriptions have clearly had to be simplified
for the non-medic, but one can easily skip over the explanatory
parentheses if one already knows where the femoral artery is and why
it's important.
One doesn't get a full explanation of why Nott feels such a strong
urge to risk his life doing this stuff, but I'm not at all convinced
that he knows himself.
Definitely a book that I'd like to read properly.
Comments on this post are now closed. If you have particular grounds for adding a late comment, comment on a more recent post quoting the URL of this one.