Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery
8 hrs. 46 min.
Description
Making mistakes or facing someone else’s errors, we soothe ourselves with the phrase: “Toerr is human.” But does it comfort the person who became a victim of someone else’s incompetence? And does it comfort the doctor who couldn’t help?
We want to believe that a doctor is infallible in their workplace. In the operating room, they are all-powerful, never tired, never feels bad, never gets irritated, and never gets distracted by stray thoughts. But what is it really like to be a neurosurgeon? What is it like to know that your actions affect not only a patient’s life, but also their identity — the ability to think and create, to grieve and to rejoice?
Sooner or later, every neurosurgeon inevitably asks these questions, because every operation is tied to immense risk. Henry Marsh, the world-famous British neurosurgeon, wrestled with them throughout his career. The result is a gripping, brutally candid, and piercing book, whose core idea can be summed up in two short words: “Do no harm.”
We want to believe that a doctor is infallible in their workplace. In the operating room, they are all-powerful, never tired, never feels bad, never gets irritated, and never gets distracted by stray thoughts. But what is it really like to be a neurosurgeon? What is it like to know that your actions affect not only a patient’s life, but also their identity — the ability to think and create, to grieve and to rejoice?
Sooner or later, every neurosurgeon inevitably asks these questions, because every operation is tied to immense risk. Henry Marsh, the world-famous British neurosurgeon, wrestled with them throughout his career. The result is a gripping, brutally candid, and piercing book, whose core idea can be summed up in two short words: “Do no harm.”
