[5][8] His father encouraged Nott to follow him into a medical career,[8][9] and also inspired his son's later war work by taking him to see the 1984 film The Killing Fields.

[9] Nott was not successful at school initially but, after resitting his A-Levels, he studied medicine at the universities of St Andrews and Manchester, graduating in 1981.

[5] He took a special interest in vascular surgery after watching a Liverpool surgeon, Peter Harris, save someone by operating on their ruptured aortic aneurysm.

[5] He combined this with general surgery, practising at London hospitals including Charing Cross, Chelsea and Westminster, St Mary's and the Royal Marsden.

[10] His other work includes appendectomies; hernia repairs; removal of lipomas and haemorrhoids; and treatment of varicose veins using ligation or sclerotherapy.

[13] The locations of his work have included Afghanistan, Bosnia, Chad, Darfur, Gaza, Haiti, Iraq, Libya, Sierra Leone and opposition-held areas of Syria.

The training courses focus on life-saving surgical procedures for austere environments, with doctors given the opportunity to practice on real bodies, supported by other resources, including videos and anatomical models.

They focus on a wide range of skills, including treating gun shot wounds and carrying out vascular surgery, with the help of a full-body simulator.

[9][13] When he found it difficult to speak about his traumatic experiences, she put him at ease by inviting him to take twenty minutes (and some dog biscuits) to befriend her corgis.

[33] In 2016 Nott appeared on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs: his music choices included "Gimme Shelter" by The Rolling Stones' and "Fix You" by Coldplay, his favourite being "Good Golly, Miss Molly" by Little Richard.