Blessed with the fortunate circumstances of my birth, I have grown up in a stable society and have never experienced violence or poverty in such extreme incarnations. There are a few reasons why I enjoyed this book so much, the first of which would be that it opened my eyes to the remote realities of war and strife.

Why do I keep going back to areas of pure misery and heartache? The answer is simple: to help people who, like you and I, have a right to proper care at this most precarious time of their lives. They reveal that the pursuits that hold the greatest allure are not always profit-driven, for money alone can never grant you true happiness. 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. To Dr Nott, saving innocent victims of conflict, a life at a time, is where he finds the most intrinsic sense of purpose. This is because the deepest desire of the human soul is to find meaning, which comes to each of us in distinct forms. What is the purpose of life? This is a question that most of us would find ourselves asking at some point. There are times when the psychological burden of the work gets to him, but he still feels a visceral longing to return to those fragile areas to contribute as much as he can.

Each overseas mission is unique, leaving him with a mixture of hope and devastation to varying degrees. He traces his journey from a fledgling MSF (Médecins Sans Frontières) doctor learning how to perform caesarean sections to an accomplished trauma surgeon spreading skills and knowledge on surgery in austere environments. Traversing the distant lands of Sarajevo, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone, Yemen, Libya, Syria and more, Dr Nott seems to have left his mark on every existing conflict zone. The traumatic effusions of such dangerous places are not always easy to navigate, but Dr David Nott seeks both the thrill of risk and the purest joy of saving lives. A truly spectacular masterpiece, War Doctor is a chronicle of the humanitarian work of a British doctor, particularly in war zones and regions of violent conflict.

David knott surgeon