Will I love Do No Harm?

This was a slightly unnerving read, but unnerving in a positive way. Why? Well, because Mr Marsh pulls no punches when it comes to discussing the risks involved in any surgical operation involving the brain. It also confronts you, dear reader, with the fragility of life and your own mortality. Why should a 40 year old find himself with a tumour which, although reducible, will nevertheless prove fatal in the end? Why should a talented, attractive young woman suffer a similar fate? Why did Mr Marsh's own son survive a risky operation when others did not? Why have I -… show more.

This book reminds us of the human aspect of surgery, aging, and disease.

The brain is superbly complex, and its innermost workings of the brain lie beyond our grasp. I love the thwarted circularity of how we can use our brain to think about how our brain thinks without really understanding how it thinks.

In many people the brain goes wrong, this is often caused by cancerous tumours growing there. Where drugs and radiotherapy fail, surgeons are often the last resort. Marsh describes his experience as a literal brain surgeon and the effect on him of having to make life-altering… show more.

Henry Marsh, similar to Richard Selzer, is another rare example of a senior surgeon with an amazing ability to recount both the outer and inner life of a surgeon. Marsh is a British neurosurgeon with a long career full of remarkable stories, and Do No Harm focuses a lens in particular on what can go wrong, along with the physical and emotional repercussions. It’s a very honest and fascinating narrative that should be required reading for all medical students, not only for those contemplating neurosurgery.