The Careful Surgeon: Stories of light, courage and compassion in the face of life and death

(Hardback)

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What does it feel like to cut someone open with a knife, to know that their life lies in your hands What does it feel like to be responsible for saving someone's limbs What does it feel like when you make the wrong, catastrophic, decision during an operation And how, as a trainee surgeon, do you find the courage to do your first major operation

In this powerful, blood-stopping and incisive insight into the life of a trauma surgeon, Dr Shehan Hettiaratchy takes us into the heart of what it takes to train, practice, perform - and mostly - perfect his surgical skills. Through real-life case studies of patients, he shows us how the emotional connection he makes with them has to be set aside the moment he takes a knife to cut them open. And despite the vast majority of operations going well - earning him the nickname of 'The Magician' - with unflinching honesty, he shows us how things can go wrong within a heartbeat and how, when the darkness sets in, he is able to get up and do it all over again.

For, ultimately, whether it be a teenage victim of a knife attack; a young girl who has nearly lost her leg during a boating accident; a survivor of a major terrorist attack at Westminster Bridge; a soldier staring into the abyss in Afghanistan, it is Shehan Hettiaratchy's patients who show him the light, coping with the very worst life can throw at them, fighting their way back to life, that allows him to do the job he so loves.

Radiant with light and darkness, this is a book full of scenes of life and death that the rest of us rarely even glimmer.

Author Bio

Prof Shehan Hettiaratchy is one of the UK's Leading Surgeons, Major Trauma Director of one of the busiest Trauma Centres in London, Consultant Plastic and Reconstructive Surgeon at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, Professor of Practice at Imperial College and National Advisor to the NHS on Armed Forces healthcare. He led the team treating victims of the Grenfell fire and the Westminster Bridge attack (as documented by BBC's Hospital), amongst other tragic events that have occurred in our city in recent years. He has been named as a Daily Mail Health Hero of the Year and included as part of The Times Alternative Rich List. He has served in the British Army since he left school as a regular and reservist, serving mainly with Airborne Forces, and was deployed to Afghanistan twice. He has worked in war zones (Abkhazia, Georgia, Chechnya, Kosovo) and disaster areas (the Haiti earthquake) with various UK NGOs. Since 2022 he has worked with UK-Med on surgical missions to Ukraine and Gaza. He was awarded an OBE in 2025 for his humanitarian work.