Reports from discomfort zones

South African doctors have a very good reputation. The excellence of their medical training is matched by the breadth of their clinical experience. For example, a young South African doctor in surgical training in Britain often has more practical experience of bullet wounds than the boss who is teaching him; or such, at any rate, would have been the case until quite recently, when inner-city surgeons started to treat the victims of drug and gang wars.

Jonathan Kaplan is a South African surgeon who has eschewed the conventional career that was clearly within his reach for that of a volunteer surgeon to the war zones of the world. He puts his life in danger to save the injured and maimed, who are often very poor into the bargain (the poor are easier to hit than the rich). His first memoir, The Dressing Station, was a brilliant evocation of his wandering life; his second book, Contact Wounds, is less good but still enthralling and mostly well written.