Summary: "Neurosurgeon Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached surgeons, this ... brutally honest account will make you think again"--Amazon.com.
Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Brain surgery is risky business, even with modern technology—paralysis, stroke, and bleeding are devastating complications. Little wonder that the first chapter in this amazing account of an English neurosurgeon's three-decade career begins, "I often have to cut into the brain and it is something I hate doing." He works on cerebral aneurysms, head trauma, brain hemorrhage, ruptured discs of the spine, and loads of brain tumors. His instruments are crude (bone drill, wire saw, small scalpel) and sophisticated (operating microscope, Computer Navigation GPS for the brain). Marsh reflects on professional detachment, uncertainty, intense anxiety, shame, and fallibility. Breaking bad news to patients and witnessing so much misery is draining. Sometimes the most important decision he makes is to do nothing: not to operate. He recounts successful cases (an operation on a young pregnant woman who was going blind due to a meningioma) and failures (surgeries gone very badly). He writes about the necessity of kindness and honesty from doctors and the difficult balance between hope and reality. Marsh remains fascinated by the brain: how "mere brute matter can give rise to consciousness" and "the electrochemical chatter of one hundred billion nerve cells." One of the best books ever about a life in medicine, Do No Harm boldly and gracefully exposes the vulnerability and painful privilege of being a physician. Copyright 2014 Booklist Reviews.
Check Availability
