When war breaks out, many of the senior doctors leave and you are left with surgeons who are young and enthusiastic but their medical education has been disrupted and they don’t always know the best way to treat cases. “The surgeons in Aleppo always stunned me. You have to be able to make the correct decision about every case that comes your way, be it in the field of vascular, general, orthopaedic, facio-maxilliary or neurosurgery, obstetrics or gynaecology. There would be none of the modern equipment, minimal blood supplies, and little support.

These conditions are nothing like the ones you would face if you were the sole surgeon in a field hospital in rural Congo, Chad, Central African Republic or other austere environment. In addition, hospitals provide warm, safe environments with every conceivable scan, test, medicine, equipment and blood supply on demand. Surgical training in the UK, US and Europe has become super specialised and as a result many surgeons are not comfortable operating outside their narrow areas of expertise. The hardest photos to see were those of wounded children who were brought in with the most horrific injuries their small bodies blown to pieces by the barrel bombs dropped indiscriminately on their communities. The doctors I trained in 20 kept me updated daily with messages over WhatsApp, detailing the bombardment, siege and shortages they were contending with alongside caring for patients in the dwindling number of hospitals in Aleppo. “There have been several occasions over the last few years when I wondered if I would ever see my Syrian friends again. Here he talks about his humanitarian work.

In 2016 he won the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award and a Pride of Britain Award for his work in Syria. Now a leading war-zone surgeon, David Nott received an OBE in 2012 for his medical work in war regions. As a student in St Andrews, his fine leadership qualities and humanitarianism were already very apparent: he was President of the Bute Medical Society, a Rugby Team Captain and was involved with the students’ Charities Campaign. David Nott graduated in 1979 with a BSc in Medicine before heading to Manchester to study for his MB ChB.

David knott surgeon