'In Good Hands is the biography of Surgeon Lieutenant Commander Samuel 'Sam' Stening, DSC, Royal Australian Naval Reserve.A paediatrician, like his three brothers Sam joined the services at the outbreak of war. He chose the RAN and served in the Indian Ocean and then in the famous 'Scrap Iron Flotilla' in the Mediterranean, where his ship, the Waterhen, was sunk in June 1941.
Posted to the cruiser Perthfor her final deployment to Java and sinking in Sunda Strait on 1 March 1942, although wounded, Sam found himself plunged into the POW doctoring experience upon his rescue by a Japanese destroyer.
This was only the start of a gruelling three and a half years of captivity, during which he served in eight POW camps in Japan. With few medical supplies, his ingenuity, and some surprising help from Japanese civilians, Sam battled the effects of extreme weather, constant punishment, overwork, starvation, and disease on his patients.
After liberation, physically and mentally exhausted by his experiences, Sam drew on the strength of his wife Olivia and the support of his family to re-establish himself in paediatrics, and rose to the top of his profession. A stalwart of the Women's Hospital in Crown Street, where an intensive care ward was named after him, and of the Royal Alexandra Hospital for Children, Sam helped gain professional respect for his specialty, establishing it as a 'proper' field of medicine, until his death in 1983.(Back Cover).
