What for Chop Today?

Long on ideals but short on surgical experience, Gail Haddock left behind the circumscribed life of a York GP for a remote hospital in Sierra Leone.

What For Chop Today? banishes news images of an emaciated and helpless Africa and journeys into the soul of a people.

It is a remarkable tale of the strength and resilience of a nation in the face poverty, exploitation and the threat of civil war.

She has her fair share of nasty gastronomic surprises, hygiene hassles and culture shock, but miraculously her waistline does not get much smaller and the craving for chocolate, lack of flushing toilets and the enormity of the task ahead do not succeed in driving her home.

Somewhere along the way her flippancy and cynicism give way to real commitment, as she sees some of the best that human nature has to offer.

She ends up defying the closure of her hospital and casting the threat of rebel invasions to the wind to return to the institution and people that provide a vital lifeline in one of the most under-privileged regions of the world.