Do No Harm

Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

By: Henry Marsh

Narrated by: Jim Barclay

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.

©2015 Henry Marsh (P)2015 HighBridge, a division of Recorded Books

Critic reviews

"Neurosurgery has met its Boswell in Henry Marsh. Painfully honest about the mistakes that can 'wreck' a brain, exquisitely attuned to the tense and transient bond between doctor and patient, and hilariously impatient of hospital management, Marsh draws us deep into medicine's most difficult art and lifts our spirits. It's a superb achievement." (Ian McEwan)

"His love for brain surgery and his patients shines through, but the specialty - shrouded in secrecy and mystique when he entered it - has now firmly had the rug pulled out from under it. We should thank Henry Marsh for that." ( The Times)

"When a book opens like this: 'I often have to cut into the brain and it is something I hate doing' - you can't let it go, you have to read on, don't you? Brain surgery, that's the most remote thing for me, I don't know anything about it, and as it is with everything I'm ignorant of, I trust completely the skills of those who practice it, and tend to forget the human element, which is failures, misunderstandings, mistakes, luck and bad luck, but also the non-professional, everyday life that they have. Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh reveals all of this, in the midst of life-threatening situations, and that's one reason to read it; true honesty in an unexpected place. But there are plenty of others - for instance, the mechanical, material side of being, that we also are wire and strings that can be fixed, not unlike cars and washing machines, really." (Karl Ove Knausgaard, Financial Times)

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.

Acerbic and accurate

I have practiced medicine many years and have rarely heard the essential truths better expressed. This is a fascinating book by an admirable physician. You will be glad you read it.

When the Air Hits Your Brain...

I loved "When the Air Hits Your Brain" by Frank T Vertosick, so I was cautiously optimistic about picking up another book on brain surgery. Happily, Henry Marsh is an excellent storyteller who approaches the topic of brain surgery from his personal experience. Henry walks through the stories of his late career, looking back more than looking forward, and he touches on some of the themes from "When the Air...". Generally speaking, that surgeons with power over life often struggle with ego and are haunted by the procedures that didn't turn out according to plan. Henry's account of the UK hospital trust system is often comedic, and befitting a "Brain Surgeons in Cars, Getting Coffee" series on Netflix. In the end, I think I'd recommend "When the Air..." over "Do No Harm" for its coverage of the field of brain surgery in the 1970's and 1980's, but in the end reading both was great and I'm looking forward to Henry's next book, "Admissions".

Honest and interesting

Content was interesting and informing
The honesty refreshing yet alarming
A good argument against nationalized health care

Riveting

Listened to the book after hearing Terry Gross Fresh Air interview with the author. Highly engaging and wonderfully literate. Particularly good performance. Expect to be a bit depressed (it IS about brain surgery).