First Do No Harm … Then Run

Medical school didn’t teach Dr Dominic Dreyfus how to deal with gang lords, nor did his time as an army doctor in the New Zealand Defence Force prepare him for the violent threats that forced him to flee his homeland …

How did a humble GP in a remote, rural practice end up on a notorious gangster’s hit list? Dominic could pinpoint the moment everything went wrong. It wasn’t during the gruelling coffee-fuelled hours studying anatomy texts at the University of Otago. He’d survived the punishing twenty-four seven on-call as a junior hospital doctor. Back then, Dominic figured a surgical posting in Wellington would be the closest he’d get to stepping on a landmine. That was before mounting debt, and a crippling student loan forced him to enlist in the New Zealand Defence Force. Patching up maimed soldiers at an outpost in Bamiyan Province was a breeze compared with the trauma he would face in rural New Zealand. No, it was a random act of kindness to a tourist while hiking in the Mackenzie District that brought his world crashing down.
Uni had taught him the Hippocratic Oath. Dominic had his own take on that. First, do no harm. Then Run.