If you thought med school was tough, wait until you survive basic training…

I found myself living in a rundown town, with no money and no job. Not a very good start to a new life for a proud graduate of the Lviv Medical University to find work. Turns out you cannot simply show up and tell the manager of the local hospital or the national health insurance, “Here is my certificate; now kindly accept me for work.”

What happens when an experienced surgeon decides to leave everything behind and immigrate to a new country, only to find out he’s about to be conscripted to mandatory military service?

He writes a book about it.

In Military Operation, Dr. Ernest Katz, decorated officer and emergency-room surgeon, holds nothing back as he shares account after account of his real-life experiences as a medical officer in the IDF’s mobile infantry brigades.

Welcome to the front lines of medicine.