Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

This book was written by a neurosurgeon in the UK and relates his experiences and seemingly many failures in performing brain surgery. It is forthright and honest and when you read this, you just hope you never have to go into the hospital to have your brain worked on. This was published in 2014 so we have about 15 years of possible advances in the interim.. Yet even the 'experts' just have minimal understanding of the organ and mistakes when operating are higher than you might think. No matter how exacting the surgeon. This is a sobering but no less interesting recounting of a neurosurgeon's journey through the medical system in England along with his stints in the Ukraine. Not to be missed.

4 stars for content, 3 stars for Impact...I have no doubt, since my almost 50 years of experience as a Surgical Practitioner in the USA, convinces me that Mr. Henry Marsh is a dedicated, honest and skilled Neurosurgeon who is trapped in the NHS along with his patients, trying to do excellent practice in this essential but dismal Specialty. The narrative is interesting and well presented with many of the situations and Government controlling imperatives and "red-tape" and coding and stratifications of care and cost containment efforts and absurd decisions paralleling those in the U.S. Aside from his own travails with retinal detachments and fractured leg, Mr. Marsh's projection of himself as the Quixotic defender of the tortured NHS regulars on occasion gets a little too whiney and blame diverting as fingers get pointed at Government Supervisors and Administrators and Managers who seem to control the patients' plight. Truth be told, that in the operating theater, Mr. Marsh is still in control and no matter how much the NHS seems to be in charge of outcomes, it is still the decisions made by the operative team which seem to be the "poor outcome culprit" in this scenario. To his credit, Henry Marsh stays true to his presented story lines and although the conclusions seem to put him at the center of the target, especially when he has allowed a less experienced member of the Registrar staff to "begin without him in the room" the only thing that takes a "hit" is his own "credability" as passionate defender of the public against the entire NHS quagmire of Medical Care.

"Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery" is a amazing book, written by a no less amazing person. Dr. Henry Marsh is a world-renowned neurosurgeon, who does more than just talk about brain surgery in this book. He discusses his greatest successes and his most haunting failures, and attempts to look into what it means to be human when surrounded by death and the terrifying yet spectacular nature of the fact that surgeons, like their patients, are human. Dr. Marsh indeed does all of this with the skill of an experienced novelist, and anyone wishing to gain insight into some of the most superbly trained minds of the planet will surely not be disappointed. "I separate the two lobes of the brain by gently stretching them apart, cutting the minute strands of arachnoid that bind them together with a pair of microscope scissors in one hand while I keep the view clear of spinal fluid and blood with a small sucker. The brain is a mass of blood vessels and I must try to avoid tearing the many veins and minute arteries both to prevent bleeding from obscuring the view and also for fear of damaging the blood supply to the brain. Sometimes, if the dissection is particularly difficult and intense, or dangerous, I will pause for a while, rest my hands on the arm-rests, and look at the brain I am operating on. Are the thoughts that I am thinking as I look at this solid lump of fatty protein covered in blood vessels really made out of the same stuff? And the answer always comes back -- they are -- and the thought itself is too crazy, too incomprehensible, and I get on with the operation."

I could not put this book down. One word of warning, though. Do not read it if you are scheduled for brain surgery. It may scare you too much, because the writer is relating mostly his failures, perhaps as a way of dealing with the corpses every neurology surgeon carries within.. That being said, it was a magnificent book that filled me with respect for the profession, for the author, and for the many brave neurosurgeons that sacrifice their families, their entire lives, even their emotional inner peace for the sake of helping others with the terrible diseases the brain can fall prey to. I realize now what a toll this profession takes on them, what a special person one has to be to deal with the patients and their families at the most vulnerable time of their lives, and how difficult it must be to give an honest diagnosis without killing any hope. Not only does the author describe - in more detail than I can understand - the intricacies of the brain and the delicate touch necessary to enter it with instruments of surgery, but he also covers the emotional interactions with patients, and the many things a doctor has to keep in mind as he/she deals with them with compassion and sensitivity. No wonder some neurosurgeons (i.e. Dr. Eben Alexander) have mystic experiences and find strength in the spiritual world. Dr. Marsh does not do this, though. He remains steadfast in his admiration for the wonders of the brain and the scientific view of the body. I suspect that, for this reason, the psychological burden of the profession may be greater on him. Thank you, Dr. Marsh, for your honesty, your strength, and your life-long commitment to your patients and to your demanding profession.

This is not the book to read if you are feeling in less than perfect health. It’s a warts and all account of the career of a neurosurgeon in Britain’s struggling National Health Service. Gory in parts, tragic in parts, and terrifyingly honest in others, the author, Henry Marsh, recounts the triumphs and disasters of his chosen profession through a myriad of his patients’ case histories. He is at pains to point out that he is merely a man, not the god his patients would like him to be, and he gladly knocks himself off the pedestal on which others have placed him. On the other side of the coin, he owns up to a certain arrogance - necessary to even contemplate digging about in people's brains - but balances this with revelations of his abiding regrets about his medical errors, surgical failures and misdiagnoses. I enjoyed the insights he offered into his life and character, and also reading about the frustrations of working within the NHS. The case histories washed over me as the book wore on.

In the age when medicine is becoming more and more guided by strict protocols and guidelines, surgery still depends now only on statistics, but on skill. This is even more true for neurosurgery, where any mistake could lead to irreversible brain damage and severe disability. So it's not surprising that neurosurgeons are much revered and there is an almost limitless belief in their abilities. In "Do No Harm", Henry Marsh, a well-known neurosurgeon with decades of practice shows the inside part of his profession, giving an account not only of success and cures, but of failures, mistakes and tragedies. Each chapter, usually named after a disease of the brain, contains stories of patients: the ones successfully cured, the ones who could not be treated and the ones wrecked by the complications of operations or mistakes of the doctor. Marsh is almost painfully honest, describing his “small cemetery” of patients, the "ghosts that watch him operate”, telling about his occasional anxiety before the operation, the shame he feels if the intervention didn't work, the decisions whether to operate at all, weighing the risks of operation against the not always large benefits (the difficult part, as he calls it). The operations themselves are beautifully and captivatingly described, and one could see that Marsh has a deep love with the brain and it's complicated structure, and feel a small part of the terrifying excitement of an operations which he compares to "bomb disposal". There is also some wry, grumpy English humour at the expense of the NHS and hospital administration. But the best part of this excellent book is Marsh's compassionate reflections about his patients and talks with them, the meditations the value of life and acceptance of death, things that we try to avoid, but with which he lives for many years. One could only hope to meet such a doctor in a critical moment.

ER true stories, not for the fainted hearts. Good book if you can digest trauma, recommended for EMTs and Paramedics.

I picked up this book on the basis of a brief review by a blogger I follow. This sort of read isn't my normal fare, but the subject was interesting, and as I got into the book, the narrative was quite engaging. Like anyone in their fifties, most of us have a fair bit of experience as a consumer of medical services, and I started the book with a certain level of smug understanding of what I might expect of a physicians narrative of his work. After finishing the book, I would like to believe that I learned quite a bit of the human element of practicing in this particular specialty of medicine. The word profound comes to mind when I try to express my personal reaction to the book, but in a way this sounds a bit dramatic. Without knowing who might be reading this review, it is hard to pass along a recommendation, but I will do so anyway. I very much enjoyed Mr Marsh's writing style, the way the subject was presented, and found the topic and narrative both very engaging and at times, intense to the point I had to put the book down and come back to it the next day. If you have the stomach for the subject, this is one book you would not willingly miss reading. I found myself spending time after having read it, learning about Mr Marsh, about his work, and viewing some of his interviews available on Youtube. Seems very much like a fellow I would like to have known personally.

Ebook stupendo, fluido anche per i non addetti al lavoro. Ho guardato video di ogni intervento/capitolo per comprenderlo al meglio. è raro riuscire a combinare in maniera così sublime scienza e umanità. L'autore ha fatto davvero un ottimo lavoro. Il desiderio di leggerlo ha vinto anche il fatto che la traduzione non fosse ancora disponibile. Mi risulta che l'IBS abbia rilasciato da qualche giorno invece la versione in italiano per cui non ci sono davvero più scuse per non acquistarlo.

I'm a medical student who was seriously considering to become a neurosurgeon but thanks to this book I realized that it isn't for me and I am not for it. However, the experiences that Dr. Marsh share are not only useful for neurosurgeons or physicians in general, but also for every person who has the life of another one way or the other (be it engineers, chemists, etc) Highly recommended book for everyone!

This was interesting to read The author made it very easy to read Being a neurological surgeon is not always rewarding but then it's a dangerous j9b at best

Excellent. Catches the nervousness and excellence of the branch at the same time

Henry Marsh has written a book accessible to all about the lifetime learnings of a neurosurgeon and his patients. It rings honest and true. One is left with a better understanding of the field of neurosurgery and the inner life of a skilled and empathetic physician. Suggest watching the BBC documentary about Marsh called the Patient Surgeon.