Do No Harm

What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someone's 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 doctor's 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, practised by calm and detached doctors, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again. With astonishing compassion and candour, Henry Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humour that characterize a brain surgeon's life.

"Riveting. ... [Marsh] gives us an extraordinarily intimate, compassionate and sometimes frightening understanding of his vocation."  -  The New York Times

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 life's most difficult decisions.