Swedish surgeon Erik Erichsen went to Ethiopia to join a team with only 3 doctors for every 100 000 inhabitants. Worn down by the Swedish bureaucracy, the waiting lists and the rules he decided to  move away. What he encounters in the West African country, where there is no money and no access to the right medical equipment, is very different indeed. But Erichsen describes it this way: the mentality is Sweden is still worse than the material poverty in Ethiopia.

His straightforward and improvised approach explains how he ends up using bicycle spokes, hairpins and a hand drill to bring his medical procedures to a successful conclusion. The Rebel Surgeon is the second film in which director Erik Gandini looks for the shadow side of Swedish society. Just like in The Swedish Theory of Love (2015), he subtly highlights the side effects of a hyper-organized society.