Combat Doctor
Life and Death Stories from Kandahar's Military Hospital
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4.5 • 11 Ratings
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- $8.99
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- $8.99
Publisher Description
An emergency room doctor recounts harrowing stories about his time at a combat hospital in Kandahar.
Combat Doctor presents the stories of the victims of the War in Afghanistan, as told by the last Canadian Officer Commanding at the Kandahar Role 3 Multinational Hospital.
In 2009, Marc Dauphin, an experienced emergency-room physician, served a full tour at the combat hospital in Kandahar. During his time there, he dealt with injuries more horrific than he had ever seen during his civilian experience. He and the Role 3 Hospital’s international staff saw an unparalleled number of severe casualties and yet maintained a survival rate of 97 percent – a record for all times and all wars.
It is impossible to remain unmoved by Marc Dauphin’s descriptions of those he treated: the terrified children, the stoic soldiers, those mutilated almost beyond help. Each story is powerful, vividly told, and unique.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In 2009, Dauphin served as the commander of Kandahar Role 3 Multinational Hospital, then under Canadian control. His tour coincided with an unprecedented wave of casualties, despite which the unit managed a 97% survival rate. The author takes the reader through life at a combat hospital in a harsh climate at the end of a long logistical trail, where sophisticated techniques are undermined by simple lack of supplies and doctors are forced to allow some to die to save others. The author's account is illustrated with a variety of anecdotes, some humorous, others horrifying, all demonstrating a genuine humanitarianism. The jocular tone belies the human cost the author's service demanded, as the section on post-traumatic stress disorder reveals. Also provided are four highly informative appendixes on combat zone medicine and related subjects. The author's subject matter is fascinating and his service to Canada must be respected. Sadly, his text often falls short; catch phrases are overused, successive chapters seem repetitive, flaws that stronger editing could have corrected. Despite those shortcomings, this is a book that demands attention.
