Doctors at War

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 is a professor of organizational ethnography at Cambridge University. His innovative research has featured widely in the press and has generated a series of award-winning books, including The Last Amateurs, and scholarly articles. His most recent fieldwork involved an attempt to row the Amazon unsupported to try and understand how people solve problems in difficult environments, earning him a place in the Guinness World Records in the process. Chris Hedges is a Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist and the author of many books, including War Is a Force That Gives Us Meaning and Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt.

Mark de Rond brilliantly presents the human side of those doctors, making them incredibly relatable. So relatable, that we might for one second forget about the barbarity they witness and how emotionally strong they must be, to imagine ourselves wanting to embrace the same challenges and purpose.

Barbara Czarniawska:

[de Rond's talent at describing places, spaces, and objects is nothing short of amazing.... Doctors at War should be read by anyone who hasn't seen a war.

Lt. Col. Jason E. Pelletier, U.S. Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas:

This is an amazing and fast read that tears at the reader’s every emotion. It leaves one ready to serve and be thankful for the sacrifice of so many in the medical community.

Karl E. Weick:

The book turns reflexive when, back home, de Rond finds himself ‘disillusioned with what I felt was a pedestrian, low-status, egocentric game of academia’ (p. 133). Confronted with the human consequences of war, academia can seem hopeless (p. 128). Once again academics are faced with the question, does our work matter? And once again the moment can turn existential. If academics do immerse themselves in de Rond’s book, they will find themselves on firmer ground no matter what they conclude about what matters.

M. W. Carr, US Army Watercraft & Riverine Operations, US Coast Guard and US Navy Diving:

This text provides renewed insight into the irrational world of humans, where we engage in endless efforts to kill one another while mustering immense energy to save and repair those injured and harmed in the process.

David Malcolm Nott OBE OStJ FRCS is a Welsh consultant surgeon who works mainly in London hospitals as a general and vascular surgeon, but also volunteers to work in disaster and war zones and also organises training for others in this emergency work. He has been honoured for this dangerous work and is now often styled the "Indiana Jones of surgery.":

This is an absolutely brilliant book. I was at Camp Bastion in the summer of 2010, and what it captures so well the feelings that we all had at the time. It is without doubt the best book I have ever read about the medical feelings we all have.

Katherine C. Kellogg, author of Challenging Operations:

Mark de Rond takes us into the dark territory of doctors working in 'the world's bloodiest hospital.’ This book is a vivid account of the lived experience of doctors at war.

In Doctors at War, Mark de Rond shines a light on a reality we are not supposed to see. It is a reality, especially in an age of endless techno war, we must confront if we are to recover the human.

Frank Ledwidge, author of Losing Small Wars:

Brilliantly written, brutally honest, and often very funny, this is a powerfully affecting book. Think House of God, with its tired, funny, sometimes cynical but totally dedicated medics; mix in some Dispatches, add a handful of MASH, and you have Doctors at War. The book deserves a place as one of the best to come out of the Afghanistan debacle.

Michel Anteby, author of Manufacturing Morals:

After reading de Rond's account of intubating children, incising bellies, stitching up wounds, and amputating legs, one’s understanding of the ghastliness of modern war and its so-called collateral damage will never be the same. A must-read for politicians authorizing the use of deadly force and for all the citizens electing them.

Dvora Yanow, author of Interpretive Research Design:

A page-turner, Doctors at War is not for the faint-hearted. De Rond's masterful narrative brings into sharp focus the absurdities of clashing organizational, professional, and cultural values and practices.

John Van Maanen, Erwin H. Schell Professor of Management, MIT Sloan School of Management, author of Tales of the Field:

Doctors at War is a tale of considerable power. It's an impressionistic account of a British field hospital told in an emotive voice; it is hardly dispassionate, but that is its strength. Mark de Rond depicts the workaday life of army surgeons on field deployment brilliantly and without glamor. He brings the Afghanistan war into sharp focus by highlighting the human costs of the conflict.