Risky surgeries. Heroic undercover missions. Unimaginable pride. In his unforgettable memoir of war and healing, Dr. Giora Treister outlines the raw realities that come with being an Israeli doctor with a scalpel in one hand and a sword in the other.

We’ve all heard the famous maxim attributed to doctors worldwide: “First do no harm.” But what happens when a medical physician is tasked with stepping onto the battlefield for the sake of his country?
While most doctors never need to worry about the practicalities of the “who” or “why” of their practice, Dr. Giora Treister is not most doctors.

From the battlefields of the Yom Kippur War to the cutting-edge halls of the ophthalmology department, from secret missions in the mountains of Kurdistan to high-stakes medical diplomacy in Soviet Russia, Dr. Treister’s life reads like an epic. A decorated military physician, a pioneer in ocular trauma, and an adventurer who moved effortlessly between war zones and world-class hospitals, Dr. Treister has made a life at the crossroads where science, medicine, and history meet in the most dramatic ways.

More than a grandiose account of an unconventional professional life, more than a riveting historical document, Spartacus, M.D. is a larger-than-life memoir of a man who defied expectations in the dichotomous journey between the compassionate and the ruthless.