Preview
  • Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital

  • The Culture and Politics of Health Care Work
  • By: Mark de Rond
  • Narrated by: Alan Roy
  • Length: 4 hrs and 45 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (2 ratings)

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Doctors at War: Life and Death in a Field Hospital

By: Mark de Rond
Narrated by: Alan Roy
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Publisher's summary

Doctors at War is a candid account of a trauma surgical team based, for a tour of duty, at a field hospital in Helmand, Afghanistan. Mark de Rond 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, de Rond captures the surreal experience of being a doctor at war. He 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 author 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. While many good firsthand accounts of war by frontline soldiers exist, this is one of the first books ever to bring to life the experience of the surgical teams tasked with mending what war destroys.

The book is published by Cornell University Press. The audiobook is published by University Press Audiobooks.

©2017 Mark de Rond (P)2020 Redwood Audiobooks
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Critic reviews

"This is an amazing and fast read that tears at the reader’s every emotion." (Lt. Col. Jason E. Pelletier, US Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, Military Review)

"Brilliantly written, brutally honest, and often very funny, this is a powerfully affecting book." (Frank Ledwidge, author of Losing Small Wars)

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