Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital
Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital
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Abstract
This book is a candid account of a trauma surgical team based, for a tour of duty, at a field hospital in Helmand, Afghanistan. It tells of the highs and lows of surgical life in hard-hitting detail, bringing to life a morally ambiguous world in which good people face impossible choices and in which routines designed to normalize experience have the unintended effect of highlighting war's absurdity. With stories that are at once comical and tragic, the book captures the surreal experience of being a doctor at war. It lifts the cover on a world rarely ever seen, let alone written about, and provides a poignant counterpoint to the archetypical, adrenaline-packed, macho tale of what it is like to go to war. Here the crude and visceral coexist with the tender and affectionate. The book tells of well-meaning soldiers at hospital reception, there to deliver a pair of legs in the belief that these can be reattached to their comrade, now in mid-surgery; of midsummer Christmas parties and pancake breakfasts and late-night sauna sessions; of interpersonal rivalries and banter; of caring too little or too much; of tenderness and compassion fatigue; of hell and redemption; of heroism and of playing God. This is one of the first books ever to bring to life the experience of the doctors and surgical teams tasked with mending what war destroys.
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