Star Surgeon is a 1963 science fiction book by Northern Irish author James White, part of his Sector General series.

It is extremely long-lived, and regularly takes complete rejuvenation treatments, including the brain and memory, to keep itself young.

It, although unconscious, appeared to have the ability to negate the most powerful drugs and resist surgery to cure its skin condition.

The patient, whose name is Lonvellin, quickly makes a full recovery, and it leaves to do what it does best: bona fide missions that involve taking backwards planetary cultures and pulling them up "by their bootstraps".

His particular mission, this time, is to cure a diseased planet called Etla, and he recruits Dr Conway and the "Monitor Corps" to help him.