About the Author

Mohamed Khadra is a professor of Surgery at the University of Sydney, Australia. He has had a successful and varied career as a leader in education and medicine, internationally and in Australia. He has a degree in Medicine, a PhD and a fellowship of the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons. He also has a postgraduate degree in Computing and a Masters in Education. His roles have included Inaugural Chair of Surgery at the Australian National University, Pro-vice Chancellor for Health, Design and Science at the University of Canberra, Professor of Surgery and Head of the School of Rural Health for the University of New South Wales. He has won several research prizes, including the Noel Newton Prize for surgical research and the Alban Gee Prize in urology. Mohamed is co-founder of the Institute of Technology Australia, an accredited higher-education provider that contributes to social justice by delivering accessible and affordable degrees to students in developing countries.

Reviews

Making the Cut is the autobiography of Melbourne surgeon Mohamed Khadra, who takes us through the progressions of his surgical career from intern to resident, and from private to academic practice. He also relates his experience as a patient in his own hospital in what is ultimately a scathing critique of Australia's underresourced public healthcare system. Dotted through the book are numerous patient case studies along the lines of ‘John Smith was a 60-year-old man with a benign prostatic obstruction.' (Khadra specialised as a urologist so there are lots of case studies about erectile dysfunction and prostate cancer.) Khadra takes considerable liberties with fact (obviously there are confidentiality issues to consider), setting his story in the fictional ‘Victoria Hospital' and presenting ‘amalgams of characters and events.' In the author's note he explains: ‘This book is no more a biography or a faithful historical account of my life as a surgeon then Monet's paintings of Giverny are engineering drawings of a Japanese bridge.' Khadra's ‘literary pretentions', however, are to the book's detriment. Rather than entertaining with juicy ‘insider's details' about the cut and thrust of surgery, this reader feels that Khadra spends too much time philosophising about the nature of surgery and passing judgement on the actions of his colleagues. Andrea Hanke is assistant editor of Bookseller+Publisher