The Dressing Station is a searing portrait of devastation on the battlefield that "illuminates the consequences of war and the ambiguities of relief work at a time when these issues couldn't matter more." (Caroline Fraser, Outside) From treating the casualties of apartheid in Cape Town to operating on Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq at the end of the Gulf War, Jonathan Kaplan has saved (and lost) lives in the remotest corners of the world in the most extreme conditions. He has been a hospital surgeon, a ship's physician, an air-ambulance doctor, and a trauma surgeon. He has worked in locations as diverse as England, Burma, Eritrea, the Amazon, Mozambique, and the United States. In this story of unforgettable adventure and tragedy, Dr. Kaplan explores the great challenge of his career -- to maintain his humanity even when that option does not seem possible. The Dressing Station is a haunting and elucidating look into the nature of human violence, the shattering contradictions of war, and the complicated role of medicine in this modern world. "A unique mix of biography and reportage, both personal and clinical," it is "a rare insight into the mind of a surgeon." -- Sue Cullinan, Time "Eloquent ... Beautifully written ... Provides a startling glimpse of battlefield surgery in those conflicts that CNN does not cover." -- Abraham Verghese, The New York Times Book Review "Kaplan ... has a keen sense of the smaller moments that leaven the agonies of daily life." -- Julian B. Orenstein, The Washington Post Kaplan could have had a lucrative practice as a doctor in England, but he tossed it away to become a battlefield surgeon in some of the world's most remote war zones, including Kurdistan, Mozambique, Burma, and Eritrea. In this refreshingly unsentimental memoir, he offers a vivid look at what it's like to practice medicine in places where there are always too many casualties and not enough resources. His descriptions of surgery are unflinching, and, while the narrative drags when he's away from the front line, he's never away for long. As a result, Kaplan gives us a remarkable self-portrait of the war junkie. He seems most alive when he's reinflating a collapsed lung using only a rubber glove or performing a skin graft with a safety razor, and though he lets us see close up the devastation of modern warfare, he is also painfully honest about the allure that war holds for him. "Part of the experience of being in the line of fire," he writes, "is the incomparable rush of clarity that accompanies it, a liberation from life's ordinary, insidious dread." Copyright © 2005 The New Yorker Used Book in Good Condition