Perilous Medicine - by Leonard Rubenstein (Hardcover)

About the Book

Leonard Rubenstein--a human rights lawyer who has investigated atrocities around the world--offers a gripping and powerful account of the dangers health workers face during conflict and the legal, political, and moral struggle to protect them. He shares the stories of people who have been attacked while seeking to serve patients.

Book Synopsis

Pervasive violence against hospitals, patients, doctors, and other health workers has become a horrifically common feature of modern war. These relentless attacks destroy lives and the capacity of health systems to tend to those in need. Inaction to stop this violence undermines long-standing values and laws designed to ensure that sick and wounded people receive care.

Leonard Rubenstein--a human rights lawyer who has investigated atrocities against health workers around the world--offers a gripping and powerful account of the dangers health workers face during conflict and the legal, political, and moral struggle to protect them. In a dozen case studies, he shares the stories of people who have been attacked while seeking to serve patients under dire circumstances including health workers hiding from soldiers in the forests of eastern Myanmar as they seek to serve oppressed ethnic communities, surgeons in Syria operating as their hospitals are bombed, and Afghan hospital staff attacked by the Taliban as well as government and foreign forces. Rubenstein reveals how political and military leaders evade their legal obligations to protect health care in war, punish doctors and nurses for adhering to their responsibilities to provide care to all in need, and fail to hold perpetrators to account.

Bringing together extensive research, firsthand experience, and compelling personal stories, Perilous Medicine also offers a path forward, detailing the lessons the international community needs to learn to protect people already suffering in war and those on the front lines of health care in conflict-ridden places around the world.

Review Quotes

A very timely and significant contribution to confronting this devastating issue.-- "Medicine, Conflict and Survival"

Perilous Medicine is a foundational text for anyone working on conflict and health issues...an indispensable tool to shame governments and decision makers in international bodies into action to protect health care in conflict settings.-- "The Lancet"

Rubenstein's and Stoddard's books show that the fight to protect medical and humanitarian workers is not new,
but we are running out of time before it becomes futile.

-- "New York Review of Books"

A major new book on healthcare in armed conflict...destined to become a landmark in its field...important and necessary.--Julian Sheather "The BMJ"

A sad and necessary read.--Michael S. Roth "The Washington Post"

Rubenstein provides a clear-eyed recent history of violence against health care. Though the topic is pessimistic, he remains optimistic about the value of humanitarian efforts. For proponents of military necessity, Rubenstein articulates why humanity matters and how combatants suffer when it fails. For the aspiring humanitarian, he shows what it takes to make humanitarianism work.--Robert Callahan "War on the Rocks"

Few people have worked as tirelessly to protect doctors, nurses, and other health workers on the front lines of catastrophes and conflicts as has Leonard Rubenstein, and in this much-needed, eagerly awaited book, he brilliantly details how ruthless leaders, militaries, and terrorists deliberately target hospitals, patients, and their health workers for destruction, kidnapping, and murder. Bravo, Professor Rubenstein, for speaking truth, however inconvenient it may be for world leaders--Laurie Garrett, Pulitzer Prize-winning writer and author of Betrayal of Trust: The Collapse of Global Public Health

Providing health care in combat zones often means delivering such care in the face of looting, fires, shelling, bombing, and plague. Rubenstein takes a deep dive in answering why violence against health care seems to be more visible. Perilous Medicine presents a well-documented series of case studies on such tragic attacks. This colossal work demonstrates how hospitals in war zones remain the last patch of humanity in times of utter chaos.--Joanne Liu, former president of Doctors Without Borders

A superb overview of the terrible number of horrendous and unlawful attacks against health care in wars worldwide. Rubenstein's unmatched knowledge, experience, and expertise shine through on every page to make this the definitive text on the subject and an urgent humanitarian call to keep health care safe in war.--Hugo Slim, Institute of Ethics, Law, and Armed Conflict, Blavatnik School of Government, University of Oxford

Rubenstein provides a comprehensive account of the drivers of the growing number of attacks on health care during armed conflict. He offers insights and ideas we desperately need to shake off complacency and insist on compliance with the norms and principles of the Geneva Conventions. Governments, including the United States, have the power to protect health care from violence. As leaders and citizens, we have a duty to ensure they do.--Representative James P. McGovern (D-MA), co-chair of the Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission

About the Author

Leonard Rubenstein is professor and director of the Program on Human Rights and Health in Conflict at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He was previously president of Physicians for Human Rights and is a recognized global expert on violence against health care.