“We did not know it then, but in a few short years, the whole medical system of the outback was on the verge of disappearing…almost all outback medical services would become fly-in, fly-out for the whole of Australia.”

There has not been a surgeon like GBS before or since…[He]could walk into a major operation-such as a total knee replacement-see it once, and then go out and perform the same operation himself…he could read about it in a textbook and then do it… People will not understand what it means to be a doctor or surgeon working on the very edge of the world, which the outback is… [t]o be a surgeon who has a patient on the table far away from the rest of civilisation…everything depends on you." (p.7)

“As I reveal the medical disasters in this book, I will often hark back to GBS because it helps us to understand…why attempts to ‘police’ the profession-especially surgeons-end in costly disasters.” (p.8)

“GBS…treated patients in the fields of neurosurgery, orthopaedic surgery, gynaecology, urology, plastic surgery, opthamology, and radiology.” (p.9)