Surgery is the crude art of cutting people open, yet it is also a
symphony of delicate manipulation and subtle chords. So says Jonathan
Kaplan in his stunning book Contact Wounds, an electrifying account of
a doctor's education in the classroom, in life, and on the battlefield.
Inspired by his father, a military surgeon in World War II and Israel's
nascent fight for statehood, Kaplan became a doctor and was appointed to
a post at a woefully understaffed South African general hospital in a
black township. Fleeing apartheid, he traveled the globe in search of
sanctuary, experiencing riots, tropical fevers, political upheaval, and
a jungle search for a lost friend. Kaplan eventually landed in Angola,
taking charge of a combat-zone hospital, the only surgeon for 160,000
civilians, where he was exposed daily to the horrors of war. Journeying
further into dangerous territory, Kaplan portrays serving as a volunteer
surgeon in Baghdad--where he treated civilian casualties amid gunfights
for control of hospitals and dealt with gangs of AK-47-wielding looters
stripping pharmacies. Contact Wounds is a stirring testament of
adventure, discovery, survival, and the making of a career devoted to
saving people caught in the crossfire of war.