Rebel surgeon
A portrait of a doctor who got tired of Swedish bureaucracy and moved to Ethiopia. In a small field hospital, with limited resources, he literally uses anything at hand to help the patients.
After 30 years of working in Sweden, orthopedic surgeon Erik Erichsen was tired of all the regulations, the waiting lists and the red tape that make his work almost impossible. Erichsen flies off to a region of Ethiopia where doctors are scarce. He is soon examining hundreds of patients a day, and his hospital waiting room is always packed. Tumors, gangrenous feet and stillborn babies are all part of his daily work. In his consultation room, there's never room for a nuanced conversation— "That foot’s got to come off, otherwise you will die." In the operating room, he's upbeat as he explains to his team how they are going to supplement their meager supplies of medical equipment with bicycle spokes and cable ties. But why exactly did this Swedish surgeon come to this particular place? And how does he ensure that here in his own domain he doesn’t turn into an autocrat?