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

The Instant New York Times best seller! Riveting. ... Marsh gives us an extraordinarily intimate compassionate and sometimes frightening understanding of his vocation. - The New York Times Winner of the PEN Ackerley Prize Shortlisted for both the Guardian First Book Prize and the Costa Book Award Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction A Finalist for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize A Finalist for the Wellcome Book Prize A Financial Times Best Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year A New York Times Notable Book of the Year What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someones life in your hands to cut into the stuff that creates thought feeling and reason? How do you live with the consequences of performing a potentially lifesaving operation when it all goes wrong? In neurosurgery more than in any other branch of medicine the doctors oath to "do no harm" holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh must make agonizing decisions often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft practiced by calm and detached doctors this gripping brutally honest account will make you think again. With astonishing compassion and candor 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 surgeons life. Do No Harm provides unforgettable insight into the countless human dramas that take place in a busy modern hospital. Above all it is a lesson in the need for hope when faced with lifes most difficult decisions.