The Dressing Station: A Surgeon's Odyssey

Jonathan Kaplan has been a hospital surgeon, a flying doctor, a ship's medical officer and a battlefield surgeon. He has worked in places as diverse as Burma, Kurdistan, America, Mozambique, England and Eritrea. The Dressing Station presents a vivid, moving account of the varied faces of medicine he has encountered. In a mixture of reportage, confession and exposition Kaplan talks about the practice of medicine and of its shortcomings, because medicine is not always benign or balanced. At its extremes it is a process of treating the casualties, for life is a war, and being a doctor is serving in that war. 'His account is born of two talents: to save lives and to bear witness. The result is a unique mixture of biography and reportage, both personal and clinical' Time Magazine Editorial Reviews About the Author Jonathan Kaplan was born in South Africa. He studied medicine in Cape Town before coming to the United Kingdom and USA to ascquire specialist surgical qualifications. After ten years of clinical experience and research work he left the secure career of hospital surgery to travel as a doctor, journalist and documentary film maker. THE DRESSING STATION is his first book.