Author(s): Mark Witoszka

NZ Biography/Memoir

World Adventures of a Polish Surgeon details Mark Witoszka’s life over a span of over 80 years, covering the immense diversity of his professional work as a surgeon and physician, as well as his rich and adventurous non-professional life. Mark also comments on political and cultural events during this time, as well as his experiences living in countries including Poland, England, USA, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia.

In Poland, the author pioneered research work which contributed to finding the cause of wound infection. He was then invited to England, where he worked with the first team of surgeons to transplant a pig’s heart valve into a human being. In America, he worked in the first medical school of Brown University, as a surgeon and scientific researcher.

Mark’s travels also took him to remote Papua New Guinea, where he worked as a surgeon, and where he and his wife experienced some unique, and sadly vanishing, Papua tribal cultural events.

Later on, the author spent many years living on his boat sailing the Intracoastal Waterway on the east coast of America, The Bahamas, and the Pacific Islands when he settled in New Zealand. 

Finally, Mark and his wife built their first small wooden house, partially by their own hands, in a remote part of the Bay of Islands, with energy supplied solely by wind generator and solar panels.