A wise man once said:

“An Opportunity seized

            becomes one man's good fortune.

That same opportunity missed

            becomes another man’s bad luck”

Surgical Tales follows Dr Paul Anderson’s fascinating journey with humour and insight as his career develops and changes exponentially as he seizes the incredible opportunities that presented themselves when he least expected.

With professional All Blacks rugby never far from the core, he takes us from a small town in New Zealand to London in the swinging sixties, through Cambridge and on to Glasgow. From Scotland, he heads over to California before moving to Cape Town, South Africa, in the throes of apartheid, to add to his surgical expertise by becoming a liver transplant surgeon. 

With shocking reality, we start our journey with Paul.

It is here, in one of the most beautiful cities in the world, that we are plunged into the worst terrorist attack imaginable where he was attacked with a grenade and shot by an AK-47. The attack at St James Church in Cape Town in 1993 was one of the first terrorist attacks on a church in Africa. Eleven people were killed that night, and he was one of the 58 seriously injured. If it hadn’t been for the expertise of his surgical colleagues, he could very well have lost his ability to operate, or worse still, his life. But sheer guts and determination get Paul back on the surgical path. To alleviate his PTSD, Paul wrote about the terrorist attack in the book Does It Hurt to Die, which received international acclaim and a major film was planned.

Cape Town where his son is born, provides many amusing anecdotes and funny patient stories that were so much part of that unique experience.