War Doctor Quotes

“Is the practice of medicine a business or is it a vocation? Where does the balance lie between doing well and doing good?”
― David Nott, War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line:

“As the Koran says in Surah 5:32: whoever saves a life, it shall be as though he had saved the lives of all mankind.”
― David Nott, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

“The boy's death turned me into a person marked by war: it was the Sarajevo equivalent of a campaign medal, although not one to wear with pride.”
― David Nott, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

“so specialized, in fact, that I feared surgeons would no longer be able to do humanitarian work. They simply wouldn’t have the array of skills necessary to treat the full gamut of injuries a single war surgeon would see in the field.”
― David Nott, War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line:

“Start on clavicle. Remove middle third. Control and divide subsc art and vein. Divide large nerve trunks around these as prox as poses. Then come onto chest wall immed anterior and divide Pec maj origin from remaining clav. Divide pec minor insertion and (very imp) divide origin and get deep to serrates anterior. Your hand sweeps behind scapula. Divide all muscles attached to scapula. Stop muscle bleeding with count suture. Easy! Good luck. Meirion”
― David Nott, War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line:

“I remember the three of us – Mum, Dad and me – all being in tears as we looked at my grades and considered the consequences. I went out into the garden and tried to make sense of it all. Yes, I could have had more support along the way – but had I given the impression that this was what I really wanted? Had I shown my teachers that I cared, that I wanted to succeed? If people thought I’d been coasting, why should I expect help from them? I was furious with myself. Tramping round our garden, I resolved there and then that I was not going to be made to look a fool ever again.”
― David Nott, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

“My main memory from those early years is of fun and laughter and love – and also a deep connection with Wales. I didn’t realize it at the time – it was all I knew – but speaking Welsh around the dinner table was another bond, both with each other and with our community. The sense of belonging and being surrounded by family love made us very secure. And the simplicity of the way we lived – not in luxury, by any means, but not hankering after things we couldn’t have, or being led astray or feeling we were missing out on anything – was deeply ingrained.
It was a very Welsh childhood, and to me completely magical. It was the mould I came from, by which I have always been indelibly marked. It was the making of me.”
― David Nott, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

“I remember the air outside being redolent of farmyards, proper rural smells, but also the fresh, clean scent of the countryside, and that I was fascinated by the well fifty yards beyond the garage, which always seemed to produce fresh water. I can still conjure in my mind the outdoor fragrance of my grandfather’s clothes – I used to love pressing my nose into the folds of his coat, immersing myself in all it represented.
It was a simple house, defined by simple things, but no less profound for that.”
― David Nott, War Doctor: Surgery on the Front Line

“The nurse smiled and gestured to two cameras pointing at each patient—one to monitor the patient himself, the other to observe the charts. The nurse told us that these were fed by Skype directly into the intensive care unit in one of the hospitals in Washington, DC, where there was a Syrian-American ICU specialist looking at the monitors twenty-four hours a day, and adjusting the patient’s medication and ventilation based on the clinical parameters.”
― David Nott, War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line:

“But despite this, the idea of the doctor as hero is deeply ingrained, and many doctors—especially in the early years of their careers—like to think of themselves as heroic. They usually soon discover that medical heroism is mainly a matter of hard work and long hours—inevitable parts of medical practice—even though in countries such as America and England there is now talk of the need for unheroic “work-life balance” and the dangers of “physician burnout.”
― David Nott, War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line:

“Is the practice of medicine a business or is it a vocation? Where does the balance lie between doing well and doing good? The hypocrisy of doctors—money and medicine are rarely far apart—has long been the stuff of satire and criticism. The dictionary definition of the word “vocation” talks of a “special urge” or of a “calling”—but there are many reasons why people choose to become doctors, and most of them have little to do with altruism. Doctors, of course, will all differ as to where they find a balance between money and morality, just as they will vary as to where they find a balance between compassion and scientific detachment, another tightrope they have to negotiate.”
― David Nott, War Doctor Surgery on the Front Line: