Bush Doctor by Damien Brown

A memoir from Damien Brown, author of the bestselling Band-Aid for a Broken Leg, on coming home to Australia and finding that doctoring in the outback is at least as challenging as working for Médecins Sans Frontières in Africa.

Damien is convinced this might be the best job going. Beautiful skies, red earth, dramatic landings, families to treat across remote communities.

At a small, isolated hospital in central Australia, a paramedic walks in with a joey for babysitting. Police help bring in two men from a car crash. A young man with heart failure doesn't want a transplant. He'd rather stay on Country.

Damien's other job is with the Royal Flying Doctor Service. Can they reach two badly burnt men in time after a fuel tank explodes on a remote Queensland cattle station? Meanwhile, Damien and his girlfriend Maya, an aid worker in London, try to make a long-distance relationship work across two hemispheres.

During one particularly violent week, his exasperation boils over. The difficult cases keep arriving and social issues can't be fixed in clinics. But the medical wins are many, and Damien comes to see that small interventions and human connections often matter more than dramatic rescues.

By turns thoughtful, funny, and deeply moving, Bush Doctor is a portrait of resilience in difficult places, and of the joys and hardships of working in some of the most isolated parts of the country.

"Bush doctoring is real medicine. Damien's journey is fascinating." Norman Swan, ABC Radio National, The Health Report

"Bush Doctor is a superb read, in equal parts entertaining and gut-wrenching. Damien captures the wonder and humour of working as a medic in remote Australia without sugar-coating the hard realities. I loved this book." Sonia Henry, author of Put Your Feet in the Dirt, Girl