For any non-medical reader, ‘Do No Harm‘ is a fascinating, exciting book. To a fellow surgeon, it is an almost cathartic self-analysis of what drives us – and terrifies us – about the speciality we simultaneously love… and hate!
A quote by French surgeon Rene Leriche kicks off the book:
“Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery, where from time to time he goes to pray – a place of bitterness and regret, where he must look for an explanation for his failures.”
In terms of the “human factors”, this is a book I could have written.
Because I doubt if there are any brain (or heart) surgeons inside whom Dr.Henry Marsh’s message will not resonate very strongly.
“Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery” will unquestionably rank as a brilliant read.
It is about the extreme vulnerability a surgeon feels when s/he takes a patient’s life, health and safety into hand… not knowing for sure whether the procedure will be helpful – or harmful in its result.
You’ll get unique insights into the thinking of a surgeon who handles life and death decisions literally every day.
- What worries him?
- Or terrifies him?
- What does he weigh in the balance before taking the next step, offering any advice, doing something or deciding not to.
If nothing else, you’ll come away with more compassion and tolerance for the foibles of even highly skilled, extensively trained medical professionals – because you’ll know just how uncertain and unpredictable things can be in the operating room.
Here are some favorite excerpts from Dr.Marsh’s book, Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery…
About his first time watching brain surgery:
“The operation was elegant, delicate, dangerous and full of profound meaning. What could be finer, I thought, than to be a neurosurgeon? It was love at first sight.”
About results of an operation:
“We have achieved most as surgeons when our patients recover completely – and forget us completely.”
About making tough decisions at the operating table:
“Sometimes at these moments my past disasters parade before me like ghosts. Faces, names, wretched relatives I forgot years ago suddenly reappear. I decide at some unconscious place within myself, where all the ghosts have assembled to watch me, whether to re-position the clip yet again or not. Compassion and horror are balanced against cold, technical precision.”
About operating on brain aneurysms:
“Every time I divided a blood vessel, I shook a little with fright, but as a surgeon you learn at an early stage of your career to accept intense anxiety as a normal part of the day’s work, and to carry on despite it.”
When things have gone wrong:
“The surgeon is now a villain and a perpetrator, or at best incompetent. No longer heroic and all-powerful.”
This isn’t a paen of praise for hardworking brain surgeons. Quite the contrary. It’s a humbling account of what really is at stake – and how neurosurgeons do their best to handle the extreme, unreal, crippling pressures of their work… guided by one overarching principle:
