‘First, do no harm’ is the Hippocratic Oath that all medical doctors swear to when they start practising. Dr Craig Jurisevic, an Australian surgeon working on the front line of Kosovo in 1999 (when Milosevic is undertaking the ethnic cleansing of Muslim Kosovars and pushing them over the border into Albania) adds an amendment to his oath. Borrowing from Shakespeare, he adds ‘To do a great right, do a little wrong.’

In Blood On My Hands, Jurisevic details his descent from morally clear medical aid provider into the very grey area of frontline medical support. Jurisevic didn’t begin from a naïve standing start: with experience in Gaza as a combat surgeon, he had more than a little familiarity with weapons of all gauges and destructive capabilities. But he is still distressed by the injuries and disturbed by the defencelessness of the KLA (Kosovar Liberation Army) against the might and savagery of the Serbian forces.

Blood On My Hands, written with Robert Hillman, is a devastating read that hits us with the fundamental brutality of any war, the absolute truth that young, enthusiastic women and men are ‘cannon fodder’ for ignorant and politic generals absent from the front line, and reminds us that there is absolutely nothing noble about war.