Dr Nick Chapman

Dr Nick Chapman is a medical doctor and non-fiction writer.

His debut book, The Bara Knife & Gun Club, is a first-hand account of working with the eclectic group of doctors who travel to volunteer in one of the world's largest, busiest, and most notorious trauma centres - Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital in Johannesburg (AKA "Bara") - and the peculiar love affair they come to have with it. In it, Nick captures the bizarre and often darkly humorous blend of chaos and comedy that came from being a part of this unique club, while also exploring concepts like voluntourism, human fallibility, medical error, and compassion fatigue.  

Nick is the co–chief editor of the open-access online medical education site baratrauma.com, and has published research in a variety of medical journals.

Originally from New Zealand, Nick trained as a doctor at the University of Otago. Since then, he has endeavoured to seek out new and interesting experiences in a variety of places; travelling wherever and whenever he can, and subsequently living for periods in Germany, South Africa, and Australia, where he now works for the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

Nick loves being up in the mountains or out on the ocean. He dreams of one day buying a small bush plane with big tundra tyres so that he can spend his days off flying around the summits he’s definitely not qualified to climb to.