David Nott

David Malcolm Nott (born 1956) is a Welsh consultant surgeon who mainly works in London hospitals as a general and vascular surgeon, but also volunteers to work in disaster and war zones. Having recognised that training others could greatly increase his capacity to help, Nott established the David Nott Foundation, along with his wife, to organise training in emergency surgery for others working in war and disaster zones. He has been honoured for this work, and has been called the "Indiana Jones of surgery". He was an orthopaedic and trauma surgeon, specialising in hip replacement;

Surgery During his medical training in Manchester and Liverpool, he was attracted to surgery.

During the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, he visited Ukraine to train surgeons, in conjunction with UOSSM International.

David Nott Foundation On a mission to Libya, Nott began to realise that many of the medical staff there were not trained for the kinds of traumatic injuries they were encountering. He began running a Definitive Surgical Trauma Skills workshop for his colleagues in the hospital. This experience, in part, led to Nott setting up the David Nott Foundation in 2015, along with his wife Elly, who led the charity as Chief Executive until 2019. The foundation is aimed at assisting with the training of surgeons for areas of conflict.

The David Nott Foundation provides surgical training for doctors and nurses who work in war and disaster zones. The training courses focus on life-saving surgical procedures for austere environments, with doctors given the opportunity to practice on real bodies, supported by other resources, including videos and anatomical models. The courses are run with the Royal College of Surgeons for five days every six months and are funded by the foundation through a scholarship scheme for surgeons working in hostile conditions.

These courses are also delivered on the front line, where doctors are unable to leave their posts, and have been held in Yemen, Libya and Iraq, among others. The front line Hostile Environment Surgical Training courses (HEST) last for four days. They focus on a wide range of skills, including treating gun shot wounds and carrying out vascular surgery, with the help of a full-body simulator. The simulator is an accurate model of the human body and can be used to demonstrate various procedures.

In 2022, the foundation provided surgical training for areas of conflict in Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Honours and awards Nott was admitted as a fellow to the Royal College of Surgeons in 1989. He was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the 2012 Birthday Honours. In 2016 he received the Robert Burns Humanitarian Award and the Pride of Britain Award. He received honorary degrees from the University of Salford in 2015, from the University of St Andrews in 2017, and was given an honorary doctorate by the University of Wales Trinity Saint David in July 2017. Nott was shortlisted for the RSL Christopher Bland Prize for his book War Doctor in 2020.

Personal life In 2015 Nott, then 58, married Eleanor Jupp, then 32. They have a daughter. Also in 2016 he spoke of his Christian faith on BBC1's Victoria Derbyshire. In 2020 he appeared in Christmas University Challenge in the Manchester team.

Publications

In February 2019, War Doctor was BBC Radio 4's Book of the Week.