-
Do No Harm
- Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
- Narrated by: Jim Barclay
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wishlist failed.
Adding to library failed
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy for $17.49
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
Listeners also enjoyed...
-
Admissions
- Life as a Brain Surgeon
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Henry Marsh
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times best seller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.
-
-
Another wonderful book
- By DaisyScoutMom on 10-08-17
By: Henry Marsh
-
Better
- A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.
-
-
Fascinating and Well Read
- By L. M. Roberts on 05-23-10
By: Atul Gawande
-
When the Air Hits Your Brain
- Tales from Neurosurgery
- By: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.
-
-
Finished in 1 and 1/2 days
- By Andrew on 04-15-17
-
One Doctor
- Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine
- By: Brendan Reilly
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic story told by a unique voice in American medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physician. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.
-
-
Simply Brilliant
- By Jan on 06-20-14
By: Brendan Reilly
-
Open Heart
- A Cardiac Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table
- By: Stephen Westaby
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death. When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Jason on 03-09-19
By: Stephen Westaby
-
Hot Lights, Cold Steel
- Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
- By: Michael J. Collins MD
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Collins decided to become a surgeon, he was totally unprepared for the chaotic life of a resident at a major hospital. A natural overachiever, Collins' success in college and medical school led to a surgical residency at one of the most respected medical centers in the world, the famed Mayo Clinic. But compared to his fellow residents, Collins felt inadequate and unprepared.
-
-
A cut above the rest
- By S. Gilford on 12-19-17
-
Admissions
- Life as a Brain Surgeon
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Henry Marsh
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times best seller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.
-
-
Another wonderful book
- By DaisyScoutMom on 10-08-17
By: Henry Marsh
-
Better
- A Surgeon's Notes on Performance
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: John Bedford Lloyd
- Length: 7 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The struggle to perform well is universal: each one of us faces fatigue, limited resources, and imperfect abilities in whatever we do. But nowhere is this drive to do better more important than in medicine, where lives are on the line with every decision. In this book, Atul Gawande explores how doctors strive to close the gap between best intentions and best performance in the face of obstacles that sometimes seem insurmountable.
-
-
Fascinating and Well Read
- By L. M. Roberts on 05-23-10
By: Atul Gawande
-
When the Air Hits Your Brain
- Tales from Neurosurgery
- By: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.
-
-
Finished in 1 and 1/2 days
- By Andrew on 04-15-17
-
One Doctor
- Close Calls, Cold Cases, and the Mysteries of Medicine
- By: Brendan Reilly
- Narrated by: Rob Shapiro
- Length: 15 hrs and 7 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
An epic story told by a unique voice in American medicine, One Doctor describes life-changing experiences in the career of a distinguished physician. In riveting first-person prose, Dr. Brendan Reilly takes us to the front lines of medicine today.
-
-
Simply Brilliant
- By Jan on 06-20-14
By: Brendan Reilly
-
Open Heart
- A Cardiac Surgeon's Stories of Life and Death on the Operating Table
- By: Stephen Westaby
- Narrated by: Gordon Griffin
- Length: 10 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In gripping prose, one of the world's leading cardiac surgeons lays bare both the wonder and the horror of a life spent a heartbeat away from death. When Stephen Westaby witnessed a patient die on the table during open-heart surgery for the first time, he was struck by the quiet, determined way the surgeons walked away. As he soon understood, this detachment is a crucial survival strategy in a profession where death is only a heartbeat away. In Open Heart, Westaby reflects on over 11,000 surgeries, showing us why the procedures have never become routine and will never be.
-
-
Fascinating!
- By Jason on 03-09-19
By: Stephen Westaby
-
Hot Lights, Cold Steel
- Life, Death and Sleepless Nights in a Surgeon's First Years
- By: Michael J. Collins MD
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 9 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
When Michael Collins decided to become a surgeon, he was totally unprepared for the chaotic life of a resident at a major hospital. A natural overachiever, Collins' success in college and medical school led to a surgical residency at one of the most respected medical centers in the world, the famed Mayo Clinic. But compared to his fellow residents, Collins felt inadequate and unprepared.
-
-
A cut above the rest
- By S. Gilford on 12-19-17
-
Complications
- A Surgeon's Notes on an Imperfect Science
- By: Atul Gawande
- Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
- Length: 9 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Sometimes in medicine the only way to know what is truly going on in a patient is to operate, to look inside with one's own eyes. This audio is exploratory surgery on medicine itself, laying bare a science not in its idealized form, but as it actually is - complicated, perplexing, and profoundly human. Atul Gawande offers an unflinching view from the scalpel's edge, where science is ambiguous, information is limited, the stakes are high. In dramatic and revealing stories of patients and doctors, he explores how deadly mistakes occur and why good surgeons go bad.
-
-
FALLIBILITY, MYSTERY AND UNCERTAINTY
- By AnnH on 10-04-20
By: Atul Gawande
-
Storm Clouds
- The Guild Wars, Book 1
- By: Chris Kennedy, Mark Wandrey
- Narrated by: Todd McLaren
- Length: 14 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Peacemaker-enforced ceasefire brought an end to the hostilities, but not a resolution, and now it’s up to the Four Horsemen to forge a lasting peace. Alexis Cromwell, despite her pregnancy, heads off to Capital with Nigel Shirazi to obtain justice from the enigmatic Mercenary Guild Council, but when they arrive, they’re quickly embroiled in galactic politics, and find out the situation is far, far worse than they could possibly have imagined.
-
-
wow I can't wait for the next installment!!!!!
- By Mike on 06-24-20
By: Chris Kennedy, and others
-
Confessions of a Surgeon
- The Good, the Bad, and the Complicated...Life Behind the O.R. Doors
- By: Paul A. Ruggieri MD
- Narrated by: Eric Martin
- Length: 8 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
As an active surgeon and former department chairman, Dr. Paul A. Ruggieri has seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of his profession. In Confessions of a Surgeon, he pushes open the doors of the OR and reveals the inscrutable place where lives are improved, saved, and sometimes lost. He shares the successes, failures, remarkable advances, and camaraderie that make it exciting.
-
-
Enjoyed the anecdotes!
- By suzanne on 07-31-17
-
The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly
- A Physician's First Year
- By: Matt McCarthy
- Narrated by: Matt McCarthy
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In medical school, Matt McCarthy dreamed of being a different kind of doctor - the sort of mythical, unflappable physician who could reach unreachable patients. But when a new admission to the critical care unit almost died his first night on call, he found himself scrambling. Visions of mastery quickly gave way to hopes of simply surviving hospital life, where confidence was hard to come by and no amount of med school training could dispel the terror of facing actual patients.
-
-
"my neurotic inner monologue"
- By Mom/RN on 06-08-15
By: Matt McCarthy
-
Cook County ICU
- 30 Years of Unforgettable Patients and Odd Cases
- By: Cory Franklin MD
- Narrated by: John Pruden
- Length: 7 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Author Cory Franklin, MD, who headed the hospital's intensive care unit from the 1970s through the 1990s, shares his most unique and bizarre experiences, including the deadly Chicago heatwave of 1995, treating the first AIDS patients in the country before the disease was diagnosed, the nurse with rare Munchausen syndrome, the only surviving ricin victim, and the professor with Alzheimer's hiding the effects of the wrong medication.
-
-
Subtle, funny and compassionate
- By Clara R. Arechiga on 05-02-16
By: Cory Franklin MD
-
Working Stiff
- Two Years, 262 Bodies, and the Making of a Medical Examiner
- By: Judy Melinek MD, T. J. Mitchell
- Narrated by: Tanya Eby
- Length: 7 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Just two months before the September 11 terrorist attacks, Dr. Judy Melinek began her training as a New York City forensic pathologist. With her husband and their toddler holding down the home front, Judy threw herself into the fascinating world of death investigation-performing autopsies, investigating death scenes, and counseling grieving relatives. Working Stiff chronicles Judy's two years of training, taking listeners behind the police tape of some of the most harrowing deaths in the Big Apple.
-
-
Great story - but not for the faint of heart!
- By R. Freeman on 08-20-14
By: Judy Melinek MD, and others
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- By: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
Incredible
- By S.R.E. on 03-02-16
-
Ghost
- My Thirty Years as an FBI Undercover Agent
- By: Michael R. McGowan, Ralph Pezzullo
- Narrated by: Mike Dawson
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Within FBI field operative circles, groups of people known as “Special” by their titles alone, Michael R. McGowan is an outlier. Over the course of his career, McGowan has worked more than 50 undercover cases. In this extraordinary and unprecedented book, McGowan will take listeners through some of his biggest cases, from international drug busts to the Russian and Italian mobs to biker gangs and contract killers to corrupt unions and SWAT work. Ghost is an unparalleled view into how the FBI, through the courage of its undercover Special Agents, nails the bad guys.
-
-
Interesting story, but narration eh
- By Ahdumb on 10-06-18
By: Michael R. McGowan, and others
-
The House of God
- By: Samuel Shem
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 14 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
By turns heartbreaking, hilarious, and utterly human, The House of God is a mesmerizing and provocative journey that takes us into the lives of Roy Basch and five of his fellow interns at the most renowned teaching hospital in the country.
-
-
First time I started it I hated it...
- By Tamara T. on 01-20-16
By: Samuel Shem
-
Playing God
- The Evolution of a Modern Surgeon
- By: Anthony Youn MD, Alan Eisenstock - contributor
- Narrated by: Kyle Tait
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
"I am a doctor." Every year, thousands of medical school graduates utter these four simple words. But as you will hear in Playing God, earning an MD is just the first step to becoming a real physician. In this thrilling and moving memoir, Dr. Anthony Youn reveals that the true metamorphosis from student to doctor occurs not in medical school but in the formative years of residency training and early practice. Here, you will take a journey through the world of surgery, hospitals, and the practice of medicine unlike any that you have traveled before.
-
-
Reader needing God
- By Mary on 12-01-19
By: Anthony Youn MD, and others
-
The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat: and Other Clinical Tales
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Oliver Sacks - introduction
- Length: 9 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Oliver Sacks' The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat tells the stories of individuals afflicted with fantastic perceptual and intellectual aberrations: patients who have lost their memories and with them the greater part of their pasts; who are no longer able to recognize people and common objects; who are stricken with violent tics and grimaces or who shout involuntary obscenities; whose limbs have become alien; who have been dismissed as retarded yet are gifted with uncanny artistic or mathematical talents.
-
-
"Lest we forget how fragile we are..."
- By ESK on 02-23-13
By: Oliver Sacks
-
You Are Now Less Dumb
- How to Conquer Mob Mentality, How to Buy Happiness, and All the Other Ways to Outsmart Yourself
- By: David McRaney
- Narrated by: Don Hagen
- Length: 8 hrs and 40 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality - except we’re not. But that's okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of 15 more ways we fool ourselves every day. This smart and highly entertaining audiobook will be wowing listeners for years to come.
-
-
You really will be less dumb!
- By Kim Drnec on 08-01-14
By: David McRaney
Publisher's Summary
With compassion and candor, leading 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 gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again.
Critic Reviews
More from the same
What listeners say about Do No Harm
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Bonny
- 06-03-15
Neurosurgical struggles between hope & reality
Do No Harm provides interesting, educational, terrifying, and honest insights into neurosurgery, the patients that undergo the surgery, Britain's National Health Service, and the author himself. Each chapter deals with a different condition - pineocytoma, meningioma, anaesthesia dolorosa, hubris - in which Mr. Marsh recounts his successes, failures, thoughts, and feelings.
His prose is beautiful when describing the brain and his view through the counterbalanced surgical microscope, which “leans out over the patient’s head like an inquisitive, thoughtful crane.” The internal cerebral veins are like “the great arches of a cathedral roof”. Marsh writes about his anxiety, how and how much he should convey to his patients, the unusual route of how he became a neurosurgeon, his frustrations, and all the things that make him human first, neurosurgeon second. When speaking with patients, he struggles to find the balance between “hope and reality,” “optimism and realism,” “detachment and compassion.” This book details those struggles in fine form, and Jim Barclay provides absolutely perfect narration.
37 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Ellen
- 05-30-15
Great storytelling wrapped in a medical package!
I am a neuropsychologist, so this topic naturally caught the attention of my geeky brain. However, I think almost anyone would enjoy this book, especially if they have ever had to navigate their way through the healthcare system to treat a significant illness (neurological in nature or not). Dr. March is not just a neurosurgeon, he is a poet, philosopher, self-deprecating comedian, and a grand spinner of stories! Finally, the narrator fits the text so well that it is hard to imagine anyone else reading this book. This is a book that I am almost certain to listen to again in the future. Well done, Dr. March!!
33 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Scott
- 06-02-15
Uneven
Would you recommend Do No Harm to your friends? Why or why not?
This audiobook features the reflections of Dr. Henry Marsh, a British Neurosurgeon with over thirty years of practice, primarily in brain surgery. His writing is straightforward and surprisingly honest – he’s not hesitant to admit mistakes in judgment, instances he has erred, and the unfavorable outcomes that haunt him (and the reader). Do No Harm is most gripping when it focuses on the surgeries and the patients – there is a surprising amount of detail and suspense in these parts. Unfortunately, these are interspersed with many less interesting bits – the inadequacies of the British health care system, hospital bureaucracies, and incompetent colleagues to name a few - where Marsh’s recollections come across as rants. This isn’t helped by the narration whose tone is more often than not equal parts frustration and irritation and which I found distracting. Do No Harm offers an interesting glimpse into the day to day world of a neurourgeon and probably should be required reading by any medical intern thinking of making this their career. For the layperson, however, I wish it had confined itself solely to the operating room.
45 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- PT
- 10-23-15
I just love this book
I know "Mr. Marsh" isn't bound to entertain me, but he sure did. Plus he educated me.
As a professional technical writer and reader, I found this book had all the elements I enjoy. It was honest. Simple. Straightforward. Thoughtful. Candid. Humorous. Emotional. Analytical. Sympathetic.
I sometimes wondered how he could be so honest about his failures. Wasn't there some risk of being attacked or prosecuted – even if he wasn't really naming names and times and dates?
I have come to realize that there is no such thing as magic. But I still like to believe in magic when it comes to the medicine that's treating me. Mr. Marsh gives a good mix of the real and the unreal, the spiritual and physical, confidence and failure.
One note: I was a little put off by the narrator. I'm not sure why. He has that sort of pompous English accent that we Americans are so familiar with. Why I found it offputting I'm not sure, but he spoke in a clear voice, and he was well recorded, his cadence and delivery were extremely competent. I can't make many sound adjustments on my iPhone, so I was very happy with the voice recording after all.
I highly recommend this book.
21 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Kathy in CA
- 11-04-15
A Totally Absorbing Read I Finished in 2 Days!
". . . Life, Death, and Brain Surgery"--that summarizes this book perfectly. It kept me totally occupied, absorbed, and distracted while trying to recuperate from a cold. Thus, I was able to finish it in 2 days. I found Marsh's patient stories fascinating. He talked about the frustrations and rewards of doing brain surgery, doctors' inevitable mistakes (his own), his trips to Kiev to do surgery, the failings of the NHS in Britain, and the difficulty of training students to do brain surgery. Some of the most interesting sections, to me, were where he discussed his own illnesses and particularly his mother's death, which he felt was the most nearly perfect death any of us could wish for.
I felt his honesty was very refreshing. Could a US doc be so honest in talking about mistakes? Probably not, with our over-intrusive legal system, watching, waiting, ever-ready to pounce. Do I wish the government would take over medical care in this country (US)? Most definitely not after reading Marsh's trials and tribulations with the NHS. Somehow, we always think the grass is greener but it seldom is.
The most important message I took away from this wonderful book was, pray you do not ever need brain surgery! It is just too darned risky. And, if by chance it is unavoidable, pray some more, this time for a doctor like Henry Marsh. AND, oh yes, do ask how many times your surgeon performed this particular operation!
Highly recommended.
23 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- 33 year old lawyer
- 05-25-16
The daily life of a brain surgeon in UK's NIH
Where does Do No Harm rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
Very highly, especially if you enjoy non-fiction biography and science.
Who was your favorite character and why?
There's only one primary character and it's the neurosurgeon himself. I heard about this book based on an interview with the author on NPR. He chose not to narrate, though he could have. I was immediately struck in the NPR interview by how very bright the neurosurgeon seemed. He spoke simply, but obviously about subjects of great importance. He also seems to know himself very well--big portions of the book are effectively his own mea culpas for mistakes he made with patients which led to the patients' deaths or paralysis, etc. Because brain cancers tend to have such poor prognoses, there is also the exploration of death and how people prepare for it.
Have you listened to any of Jim Barclay’s other performances before? How does this one compare?
This was my first time listening to this narrator, but I would listen to him again. I felt he did a great job with the text and likely sounds much like the author would have. I particularly enjoyed it when the narrator grew agitated, as the author obviously was, about the problems with the bureaucracy in the NIH in England. I kind of giggled at those portions.
Did you have an extreme reaction to this book? Did it make you laugh or cry?
There were a few passages where I teared up or cried when patients did not make it or something sad happened, but I would not describe it overall as a tear-jerker. There were a few absurd moments when I did laugh.
Any additional comments?
The audiobook was less scientific than I expected. This is more along the lines of an autobiography of a doctor than a science book. For instance, I can't say I know a lot more about brain surgery than I did prior to listening. I am sort of a "medical hobbyist" and while I probably could go back and write down specific conditions or operations and memorize the terms, that is likely the only way I would necessarily be smarter about brain surgery. My thoughts on brain cancer are effectively the same before and after listening to the audiobook.
This audiobook would likely be of interest for many professionals in positions of high stress, high responsibility, etc. because the author details his own struggles with these issues and the need to perform highly while still forgiving oneself for mistakes in order to carry on.
14 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Diane
- 02-16-16
One Grumpy Old Brain Surgeon
I bought this book in the print version for my son, a 3rd year medical student with aspirations of becoming a neurosurgeon, and now I am sort of wishing I hadn't. While there are certainly many fascinating stories of the medical crises a neurosurgeon regularly confronts, a good ⅓ to ½ of the book consists of Dr. Marsh's railing against all the confounded, new-fangled nonsense he has to put up with, including the NHS, computers, hospital administrators, residents with limited work hours, etc., etc., etc.
I'm not denying that modern doctors must all experience frustration to a greater or lesser extent in having to deal with bureaucracy and paperwork instead of practicing medicine, but I had not expected this to be such a large portion of the book. Dr. Marsh offers no real solutions to these issues except for opining that it was so much better in the good old days. Narration is great, capturing Dr. Marsh's curmudgeonly character quite perfectly.
30 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Phil Gillette
- 03-10-19
Heady stuff (har har)
I like books about the workings of the brain, including this one. As a memoir, it had less of the instructional and more of personal perspective. Different from what I usually read, but enlightening to discover the struggles with bureaucracy and with maintaining compassion that brain surgeons endure.
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Yarngirl52
- 11-29-19
Candid look at neurosurgery in UK
Henry March was a senior consultant neurosurgeon in an NHS hospital in London. l loved his rants about management, bed shortages, and impossible rules regarding so called health and safety. Equally fascinating were the anecdotes regarding the various brain tumors. My DIL died of a glioblastoma that started as an astrocytoma. She was in her early 30s.
Marsh is brutally honest in describing his mistakes, especially those caused by hubris or cognitive errors. Doctors including surgeons are fallible. I am happy he realized that. He also knows which cases are better off without surgery. I know too many pompous and arrogant surgeons; some think they are a god.
Marsh has an incredible way of describing the architecture of the brain. He paints a beautiful picture. Amazing!
I struggled to understand the NHS and the hierarchy in the British medical education system. If you are an American, you might want to research that first. I highly recommend this book.
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Sultan Althehli
- 07-13-15
The life of a neurosurgeon
This is a book that documents the daily life of a neurosurgeon. What I liked about it is that it gave me what I expected. I had always wondered how doctors handled the stresses of uncertainty that decide the life or death of their patients and how they view their failures and successes. The book does these question, and many more, more than justice. The story Dr. Marsh tells in this book is honest and never-boring.
2 people found this helpful
Related to this topic
-
Admissions
- Life as a Brain Surgeon
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Henry Marsh
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times best seller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.
-
-
Another wonderful book
- By DaisyScoutMom on 10-08-17
By: Henry Marsh
-
Confessions of a GP
- By: Benjamin Daniels
- Narrated by: Eamonn Riley
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor.
-
-
Very enjoyable
- By PCF on 05-27-17
By: Benjamin Daniels
-
Intern
- A Doctor's Initiation
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Sandeep Jauhar
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A thriving cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities you'd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
-
-
very realistic
- By Heather Stein on 10-18-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
-
Doctored
- The Disillusionment of an American Physician
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hoping for the stability he needs to start a family, Sandeep Jauhar, an attending cardiologist, accepts a position at a massive teaching hospital on the outskirts of Queens. With a decade's worth of elite medical training behind him, he is eager to settle down and reap the rewards of countless sleepless nights. Instead, he is confronted with sobering truths. Doctors' morale is low and getting lower.
-
-
Frank, inside perspective on the follies of unintended consequences in medical reform
- By Jared T Wilsey on 02-25-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
-
God's Hotel
- A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
- By: Victoria Sweet
- Narrated by: Victoria Sweet
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves - "anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care - ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for 20 years. Laguna Honda, lower-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished.
-
-
Great read
- By kayla solomon on 04-08-17
By: Victoria Sweet
-
You Can Stop Humming Now
- By: Daniela Lamas
- Narrated by: Susannah Jones, Daniela Lamas
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?
-
-
Enlighthening
- By GMA on 07-29-18
By: Daniela Lamas
-
Admissions
- Life as a Brain Surgeon
- By: Henry Marsh
- Narrated by: Henry Marsh
- Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered. Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times best seller Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.
-
-
Another wonderful book
- By DaisyScoutMom on 10-08-17
By: Henry Marsh
-
Confessions of a GP
- By: Benjamin Daniels
- Narrated by: Eamonn Riley
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Benjamin Daniels is angry. He is frustrated, confused, baffled and, quite frequently, very funny. He is also a GP. These are his confessions.A woman troubled by pornographic dreams about Tom Jones. An 80-year-old man who can't remember why he's come to see the doctor.
-
-
Very enjoyable
- By PCF on 05-27-17
By: Benjamin Daniels
-
Intern
- A Doctor's Initiation
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Sandeep Jauhar
- Length: 10 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
A thriving cardiologist, Jauhar has all the qualities you'd want in your own doctor: expertise, insight, a feel for the human factor, a sense of humor, and a keen awareness of the worries that we all have in common. His beautifully written memoir explains the inner workings of modern medicine with rare candor and insight.
-
-
very realistic
- By Heather Stein on 10-18-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
-
Doctored
- The Disillusionment of an American Physician
- By: Sandeep Jauhar
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 10 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hoping for the stability he needs to start a family, Sandeep Jauhar, an attending cardiologist, accepts a position at a massive teaching hospital on the outskirts of Queens. With a decade's worth of elite medical training behind him, he is eager to settle down and reap the rewards of countless sleepless nights. Instead, he is confronted with sobering truths. Doctors' morale is low and getting lower.
-
-
Frank, inside perspective on the follies of unintended consequences in medical reform
- By Jared T Wilsey on 02-25-18
By: Sandeep Jauhar
-
God's Hotel
- A Doctor, a Hospital, and a Pilgrimage to the Heart of Medicine
- By: Victoria Sweet
- Narrated by: Victoria Sweet
- Length: 13 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
San Francisco's Laguna Honda Hospital is the last almshouse in the country, a descendant of the Hôtel-Dieu (God's hotel) that cared for the sick in the Middle Ages. Ballet dancers and rock musicians, professors and thieves - "anyone who had fallen, or, often, leapt, onto hard times" and needed extended medical care - ended up here. So did Victoria Sweet, who came for two months and stayed for 20 years. Laguna Honda, lower-tech but human-paced, gave Sweet the opportunity to practice a kind of attentive medicine that has almost vanished.
-
-
Great read
- By kayla solomon on 04-08-17
By: Victoria Sweet
-
You Can Stop Humming Now
- By: Daniela Lamas
- Narrated by: Susannah Jones, Daniela Lamas
- Length: 6 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Modern medicine is a world that glimmers with new technology and cutting-edge research. To the public eye, medical stories often begin with sirens and flashing lights and culminate in survival or death. But these are only the most visible narratives. As a critical care doctor treating people at their sickest, Daniela Lamas is fascinated by a different story: what comes after for those whose lives are extended by days, months, or years as a result of our treatments and technologies?
-
-
Enlighthening
- By GMA on 07-29-18
By: Daniela Lamas
-
I Wasn't Strong Like This When I Started Out
- True Stories of Becoming a Nurse
- By: Lee Gutkind
- Narrated by: Tavia Gilbert
- Length: 8 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
This collection of true narratives reflects the dynamism and diversity of nurses who provide the first vital line of patient care. Here, nurses remember their first "sticks", first births, and first deaths and reflect on what gets them though long, demanding shifts and keeps them in the profession.
-
-
Kept my interest
- By C Sterchele on 08-25-15
By: Lee Gutkind
-
Slow Medicine
- The Way to Healing
- By: Victoria Sweet
- Narrated by: Victoria Sweet
- Length: 9 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In the quarter century that Victoria Sweet has been a doctor, "health care" has replaced medicine, "providers" (vastly outnumbered by administrators) look at their laptops more than at their patients, and the ruthless pursuit of efficiency has vanquished not only trust and intimacy but also, often, the effectiveness of treatment. Victoria Sweet knows that there is an alternative way, because she has lived and practiced it. In her new book, she reflects with compassion, wit, and profound insight.
-
-
Slow is Beautiful
- By Nancy G on 05-08-18
By: Victoria Sweet
-
The Language of Kindness
- A Nurse's Story
- By: Christie Watson
- Narrated by: Christie Watson
- Length: 8 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christie Watson spent 20 years as a nurse, and in this intimate, poignant, and remarkably powerful audiobook, she opens the doors of the hospital and shares its secrets. She takes us by her side down hospital corridors to visit the wards and meet her unforgettable patients. In the neonatal unit, premature babies fight for their lives, hovering at the very edge of survival, like tiny Emmanuel, wrapped up in a sandwich bag. On the cancer wards, the nurses administer chemotherapy and, long after the medicine stops working, something more important.
-
-
Story of kindness, story of Nursing in GB
- By michael on 06-19-18
By: Christie Watson
-
When the Air Hits Your Brain
- Tales from Neurosurgery
- By: Frank T Vertosick Jr. MD
- Narrated by: Kirby Heyborne
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
With poignant insight and humor, Frank Vertosick, Jr., MD, describes some of the greatest challenges of his career, including a six-week-old infant with a tumor in her brain, a young man struck down in his prime by paraplegia, and a minister with a .22-caliber bullet lodged in his skull. Told through intimate portraits of Vertosick's patients and unsparing-yet-fascinatingly detailed descriptions of surgical procedures, When the Air Hits Your Brain illuminates both the mysteries of the mind and the realities of the operating room.