Book description
Surgery carries more individual responsibility than any other field of
medicine. Jonathan Kaplan studied medicine in South Africa and, after
working in a black township and being drafted by the South African army,
he chose exile rather than serve the apartheid state. He travelled the
globe in search of sanctuary, experiencing riots, tropical fevers,
political upheaval and a jungle search for a lost friend. Kaplan landed
eventually in Angola and took charge of a combat zone hospital, the only
surgeon for 160,000 civilians, where he was exposed daily to the horrors
of war. As a volunteer surgeon in Baghdad, he treated civilian
casualties amid gunfights for control of hospitals, gangs of AK-47
wielding looters stripping pharmacies, and militant Shi'a groups
harassing doctors out of operating rooms.
Contact Wounds
is an account of these travels. Immediate, haunting and wryly funny,
the book is simultaneously a vivid illustration of how to mess up a
promising medical career, and an account of survival - Kaplan’s own as
well as that of his patients. Kaplan describes his attempt to find his
place in a world entering a time of instability and war, and the way in
which his qualifications in trauma and uncertainty have made him a
specialist in this century’s changed requirements. Jonathan Kaplan is
a travelling journalist, documentary film-maker and medical vagabond.
His first book The Dressing Station
introduced his work as an air ambulance doctor, battlefield surgeon and
ship's medical officer. He continues to take periodic assignments as a
volunteer surgeon in war zones amidst part-time hospital posts,
film-making, acadamic teaching, working as a photographer and advisor on
medical TV dramas.
