A series of gripping and fascinating medical stories.
A physician’s memoir of service in war zones around the world.
Even during training, British surgeon Nott thrilled to hear stories of colleagues who delivered care in poor, often war-torn nations. After receiving a post at Charing Cross Hospital in London in 1992, he proceeded to do the same. Many international charities, such as the Red Cross, require a substantial commitment, so they often attract retirees or the wealthy. Like many physicians in their prime, Nott chose to work with Doctors Without Borders, founded in France, which accepts volunteers for as little as a few weeks. Almost immediately, the author was sent to Sarajevo, under siege during the vicious civil war in the former Yugoslavia. There followed tours in Africa, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Haiti, Palestine, and, more recently, Syria, where he encountered countless heartbreaking examples of the enormous suffering humans inflict on each other in times of political violence and war. Quickly learning that dealing with the catastrophic injuries from explosives and high-velocity bullets required skills not taught during surgical training, he found himself making lifesaving decisions under primitive conditions, often without technical aids. Most readers will know what to expect, and Nott does not disappoint, delivering riveting, generally gruesome stories of victims who came under his care and the professionals, mostly admirable, who worked with him. He is not shy about discussing his work, so readers will learn much about how battle surgeons go about their job. Nott soon discovered that this was knowledge other volunteers and nearly all local doctors were also lacking, so he began to teach a course entitled “Surgical Techniques in Austere Environments,” which caught on. The author’s efforts to publicize these horrors made him well known—and this book was a No. 1 bestseller in Britain—but unfortunately persuaded no Western governments to take action to end them, which they (unlike the humanitarian organizations) had the power to accomplish.
A series of gripping and fascinating medical stories.Pub Date: March 3, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-4197-4424-2
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Dec. 21, 2019
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2020
The author's youthfulness helps to assure the inevitable comparison with the Anne Frank diary although over and above the...
Elie Wiesel spent his early years in a small Transylvanian town as one of four children.
He was the only one of the family to survive what Francois Maurois, in his introduction, calls the "human holocaust" of the persecution of the Jews, which began with the restrictions, the singularization of the yellow star, the enclosure within the ghetto, and went on to the mass deportations to the ovens of Auschwitz and Buchenwald. There are unforgettable and horrifying scenes here in this spare and sombre memoir of this experience of the hanging of a child, of his first farewell with his father who leaves him an inheritance of a knife and a spoon, and of his last goodbye at Buchenwald his father's corpse is already cold let alone the long months of survival under unconscionable conditions.
Pub Date: Jan. 16, 2006
ISBN: 0374500010
Page Count: 120
Publisher: Hill & Wang
Review Posted Online: Oct. 7, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 15, 2006
Well-told and admonitory.
Young-rags-to-mature-riches memoir by broker and motivational speaker Gardner.
Born and raised in the Milwaukee ghetto, the author pulled himself up from considerable disadvantage. He was fatherless, and his adored mother wasn’t always around; once, as a child, he spied her at a family funeral accompanied by a prison guard. When beautiful, evanescent Moms was there, Chris also had to deal with Freddie “I ain’t your goddamn daddy!” Triplett, one of the meanest stepfathers in recent literature. Chris did “the dozens” with the homies, boosted a bit and in the course of youthful adventure was raped. His heroes were Miles Davis, James Brown and Muhammad Ali. Meanwhile, at the behest of Moms, he developed a fondness for reading. He joined the Navy and became a medic (preparing badass Marines for proctology), and a proficient lab technician. Moving up in San Francisco, married and then divorced, he sold medical supplies. He was recruited as a trainee at Dean Witter just around the time he became a homeless single father. All his belongings in a shopping cart, Gardner sometimes slept with his young son at the office (apparently undiscovered by the night cleaning crew). The two also frequently bedded down in a public restroom. After Gardner’s talents were finally appreciated by the firm of Bear Stearns, his American Dream became real. He got the cool duds, hot car and fine ladies so coveted from afar back in the day. He even had a meeting with Nelson Mandela. Through it all, he remained a prideful parent. His own no-daddy blues are gone now.
Well-told and admonitory.Pub Date: June 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-074486-3
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Amistad/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2006
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