---
product_id: 48754972
title: "Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - as seen on 'life-changing' BBC documentary Confessions of a Brain Surgeon"
price: "€ 26.03"
currency: EUR
in_stock: true
reviews_count: 13
url: https://www.desertcart.hr/products/48754972-do-no-harm-stories-of-life-death-and-brain-surgery
store_origin: HR
region: Croatia
---

# Rare candid neurosurgeon memoir Deep dive into brain surgery complexities Ethical dilemmas & life-changing decisions Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - as seen on 'life-changing' BBC documentary Confessions of a Brain Surgeon

**Price:** € 26.03
**Availability:** ✅ In Stock

## Summary

> 🧠 Unlock the mind behind the scalpel — where science meets soul.

## Quick Answers

- **What is this?** Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - as seen on 'life-changing' BBC documentary Confessions of a Brain Surgeon
- **How much does it cost?** € 26.03 with free shipping
- **Is it available?** Yes, in stock and ready to ship
- **Where can I buy it?** [www.desertcart.hr](https://www.desertcart.hr/products/48754972-do-no-harm-stories-of-life-death-and-brain-surgery)

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## Why This Product

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## Key Features

- • **Humanizing the Surgeon:** Insight into the personal struggles and reflections behind the operating theatre.
- • **Award-Winning Bestseller:** Join thousands who’ve rated it 4.5 stars and propelled it to top ranks in Surgery & Medical Biographies.
- • **Accessible Medical Insight:** Written for professionals and curious minds alike, no medical jargon required.
- • **Ethical Crossroads Explored:** Navigate profound decisions that balance risk, hope, and human life.
- • **Unfiltered Neurosurgical Reality:** Experience the raw highs and lows of brain surgery from a top London consultant.

## Overview

Do No Harm is a gripping memoir by Henry Marsh, a retired London neurosurgeon, offering an unprecedented look at the technical, ethical, and emotional challenges of brain surgery. Celebrated for its honesty and depth, this bestseller blends medical insight with human stories, making it essential reading for medical professionals and anyone fascinated by the fragility and resilience of life.

## Description

'A SUPERB ACHIEVEMENT' IAN MCEWAN * * * * * What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut through the stuff that creates thought, feeling and reason? How do you live with the consequences when it all goes wrong? DO NO HARM offers an unforgettable insight into the highs and lows of a life dedicated to operating on the human brain, in all its exquisite complexity. With astonishing candour and compassion, Henry Marsh reveals the exhilarating drama of surgery, the chaos and confusion of a busy modern hospital, and above all the need for hope when faced with life's most agonising decisions. * * * * * Winner: PEN Ackerley Prize South Bank Sky Arts Award for Literature Shortlisted: Costa Biography Award Duff Cooper Prize Wellcome Book Prize Guardian First Book Award Slightly Foxed Best First Biography Prize Longlisted: Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction

Review: A remarkable book - This is a truly remarkable book written by a recently retired consultant neurosurgeon in London. He is a most perceptive character and reflects on his work and patients’ lives. A constant theme throughout the book is the difficulty in making decisions which will have very profound effects on the patient and weighing up the risks and benefits and how to relay these. I did work as a neurosurgery SHO for a while before turning to general practice. It was all far too alarming for me with operations regularly lasting longer than a complete Wagner Ring Cycle but with fewer intervals. I believe Henry Marsh is more reflective than most neurosurgeons I ever came across. As he describes his early life, he originally went into the Arts at university and seems to have been inspired to become a neurosurgeon whilst being exposed to this area in his work in the hospital as a porter. He describes many of the issues faced by all doctors at all levels and enjoys a healthy scepticism of hospital administration which is probably quite widespread amongst clinical staff and gives a few side-swipes to petty bureaucracy. The book is divided into chapters often with a pathological diagnosis. This is fully explained and is perfectly readable by the non medically qualified. Certainly all doctors and medical students should read this book. Is there anyone who should not read this book? Yes – anyone who is about to undergo a neurosurgical procedure. It will scare the living daylights out of them. You certainly appreciate from the operative descriptions the grave consequences of even the most minor slip or error and Henry Marsh is only too aware of this. He describes his successes as well as his failures and reflects on how these impacted the patient and the doctor. This is a beautiful example of how to write an e-portfolio learning log. He describes vividly his first mistake as a junior doctor on the wards and not appreciating the patient knew something was wrong but the doctor ignored it. The ups and downs of a day are described: miraculously saving the sight of a pregnant woman with a pituitary tumour but another patient died after a bleed post operatively. There are many references to Henry Marsh being aware of his personal failings, not least with his ability to become annoyed and fearing he may lose his temper. This seems more in relation to staff and colleagues than patients. He seems relieved at times to have kept his cool. There is an interesting reflection on psychosurgery which was probably losing favour by the time Marsh was entering his career but he makes some interesting points about this in the chapter entitled “Leucotomy”. There is a lot on breaking bad news (as you may expect in neurosurgery) and in some stories this is done in more detail than others. What does come across is Marsh not enjoying this (who would) but sees it as a very necessary time to invest with his patients. Not needing to say much, silence, answering questions. In the chapter Medulloblastoma, Marsh describes the harrowing tale of a child dying on the table during surgery, the silence, the reaction of staff and the parents’ reaction or rather his fears about how they would react. Small things to carers can become a big issue and worth attending to the details. The chapter Neurotmesis describes supervision of a junior doctor who got things badly wrong. Those doctors involved in training constantly have to weigh up how much exposure to give trainees and whether they are capable but having to take the consequences if things go wrong. I enjoyed the way he questioned his junior staff to think beyond the obvious and question what they were doing and why. The morning meetings to look at the day’s admissions and scans seem to have been particularly beneficial. Marsh also describes his own life and health issues. This includes managing the death of his own mother, his own child requiring neurosurgery. His marriage clearly broke down but although there are a few comments suggesting work may have played a part, there is little detail about this. Happily however he found a new wife, Kate. There is the interesting relationship between healthcare professionals when one has to take up the sick role. Are we fearful of treating colleagues? Are they aware of the risks more than the average lay person? Are they more forgiving if things go wrong? He describes his own illnesses, retinal detachment which he rather ignored the warning signs of and his fears about going blind and not being able to work. He describes his ankle fracture-dislocation and his own lack of health and safety awareness or perhaps indestructibility (who would cycle to and from work on a push bike in central London without a crash helmet – a neurosurgeon of course). His description of his own doctor’s reactions to him is very interesting especially to those of us who have to treat colleagues. He recognises the importance of having a space in which to reflect. He built a room at home. He bought large red sofas for the operating theatre suite at work. The chapter Akinetic Mutism deals with Marsh visiting a nursing home where patients lie in a persistent vegetative state. He recognised several by their names and brought home the results of his failures and the resultant lifetime of nursing home care with no quality of life. They had disappeared from his clinics but they were still out there, being cared for by kindly nuns and the like. What is consciousness and what constitutes a valued life. Marsh contemplates about how different patients respond to the knowledge that they are going to die, some had a very dramatic reaction and there were also the issues of how were they to be cared for. Others have a much more measured view and clearly have been able to come to terms with their situation. There is a description of patients waiting to see him and then waiting for scans desperate to know if they are going to live or die. They are being stalked by death and his job is to keep the shadowy figure as far away from them as possible. A very amusing concept is described of tonnes (we are metric now) of medical records being moved around the hospital full of paperwork related to patient’s bodily functions in nursing records like dung beetles! There is a chapter on Marsh’s involvement with NICE and acting as a clinical advisor. He clearly respected the process of the decision making and the thoroughness in which all views were considered. However he recognised he was out of his depth in the theoretical discussions about drugs for treatment. His reaction to hospital hierarchy and administrators, the odd spats with them, but at the same time respect for staff he had known a long time. As was said, he could not do their job and they could not do his. His secretary, Gayle and senior ward nurses he had great respect for and I am sure they loved him dearly. There are many interesting and thought provoking phrases in the book: • The surgeon has known heaven having come very close to hell. This relates to a procedure which was going horribly wrong but in the end it all worked out for the best and the patient was fine, very grateful, but knew nothing of the anguish the surgeon went through to get there. • The value of the doctor’s work as measured solely by the value of his/her patient’s lives. In other words the doctor’s value is only as good as the benefit patients receive from them. An interesting concept which comes from the notion of public service. Certainly reading this book Henry Marsh comes over as recognising he is equal to his patients and their world is as important as his. • The operating is easy. The difficulties lie with the decision making. This is very stark in neurosurgery where the wrong choice can have devastating consequences in terms of quality of life. However all doctors face similar choices and dilemmas every day. Perhaps they are not as immediately devastating but nonetheless require thought and an ability to balance the risks and benefits. • Love can be very selfish. This related to keeping relatives alive when really it would be best to just let them go. • If the patient is going to get damaged, let God do it, rather than you. In other words try not to harm and make things worse yourself. • Patients becoming an object of fear as well as sympathy. After doctors have made a few errors they may come to see patients as a risky entity and fearful of contact with them in case they bite back and the clinician no longer wants to play with fire. • Gratitude all patients have for their doctor when things go well. However demonising when things do not go well. • On risks and complication rates: If it all goes wrong it is 100% disaster for the patient but still only 5% risk for the surgeon. Those are the grim facts. This is an interesting reflection on the many perspectives of being a clinician written in an absorbing and humane manner.
Review: A very honest and insightful look into the world of a surgeon - "It's not brain surgery" is up there with "It's not Rocket Science" as a way to make something seem simple, because the alternatives are generally viewed as the pinnacle of difficulty. This book grabbed me because it's by a man who does Brain Surgery every day and very honest about the difficulty of being a human being doing something so difficult. In here you'll find cases of near miraculous recovery, nigh impossible operations that go well restoring those with no hope to health, but also seemingly simple cases that go wrong, sometimes with life-ending (at least life-limiting) results. The writer is honest, too, in describing the cases where he feels the fault was his, either in engendering false hope or in something going wrong. I can only imagine the trauma of those who his 'mistakes' impacted, but equally someone has to be prepared to take these chances for the ones successfully treated to recover. What came through for me is that it's a fine line between success and failure, that, often, Brain Surgery IS incredibly complex and difficult, and that it takes a huge amount of courage to risk the guilt of failing when you have before, but that you are one of only a tiny few have the skills to succeed. An uplifting, heart-breaking, sobering, euphoric read - One of the most unexpected pleasures (and traumas all in one) I've had from a book in recent years.

## Features

- New Store Stock

## Technical Specifications

| Specification | Value |
|---------------|-------|
| Best Sellers Rank | 8,012 in Books ( See Top 100 in Books ) 3 in Family & Lifestyle Surgery 4 in Surgery (Books) 24 in Medical Biographies |
| Customer Reviews | 4.4 out of 5 stars 16,259 Reviews |

## Images

![Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - as seen on 'life-changing' BBC documentary Confessions of a Brain Surgeon - Image 1](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/815Ij+zwB8L.jpg)

## Customer Reviews

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ A remarkable book
*by W***E on 3 July 2016*

This is a truly remarkable book written by a recently retired consultant neurosurgeon in London. He is a most perceptive character and reflects on his work and patients’ lives. A constant theme throughout the book is the difficulty in making decisions which will have very profound effects on the patient and weighing up the risks and benefits and how to relay these. I did work as a neurosurgery SHO for a while before turning to general practice. It was all far too alarming for me with operations regularly lasting longer than a complete Wagner Ring Cycle but with fewer intervals. I believe Henry Marsh is more reflective than most neurosurgeons I ever came across. As he describes his early life, he originally went into the Arts at university and seems to have been inspired to become a neurosurgeon whilst being exposed to this area in his work in the hospital as a porter. He describes many of the issues faced by all doctors at all levels and enjoys a healthy scepticism of hospital administration which is probably quite widespread amongst clinical staff and gives a few side-swipes to petty bureaucracy. The book is divided into chapters often with a pathological diagnosis. This is fully explained and is perfectly readable by the non medically qualified. Certainly all doctors and medical students should read this book. Is there anyone who should not read this book? Yes – anyone who is about to undergo a neurosurgical procedure. It will scare the living daylights out of them. You certainly appreciate from the operative descriptions the grave consequences of even the most minor slip or error and Henry Marsh is only too aware of this. He describes his successes as well as his failures and reflects on how these impacted the patient and the doctor. This is a beautiful example of how to write an e-portfolio learning log. He describes vividly his first mistake as a junior doctor on the wards and not appreciating the patient knew something was wrong but the doctor ignored it. The ups and downs of a day are described: miraculously saving the sight of a pregnant woman with a pituitary tumour but another patient died after a bleed post operatively. There are many references to Henry Marsh being aware of his personal failings, not least with his ability to become annoyed and fearing he may lose his temper. This seems more in relation to staff and colleagues than patients. He seems relieved at times to have kept his cool. There is an interesting reflection on psychosurgery which was probably losing favour by the time Marsh was entering his career but he makes some interesting points about this in the chapter entitled “Leucotomy”. There is a lot on breaking bad news (as you may expect in neurosurgery) and in some stories this is done in more detail than others. What does come across is Marsh not enjoying this (who would) but sees it as a very necessary time to invest with his patients. Not needing to say much, silence, answering questions. In the chapter Medulloblastoma, Marsh describes the harrowing tale of a child dying on the table during surgery, the silence, the reaction of staff and the parents’ reaction or rather his fears about how they would react. Small things to carers can become a big issue and worth attending to the details. The chapter Neurotmesis describes supervision of a junior doctor who got things badly wrong. Those doctors involved in training constantly have to weigh up how much exposure to give trainees and whether they are capable but having to take the consequences if things go wrong. I enjoyed the way he questioned his junior staff to think beyond the obvious and question what they were doing and why. The morning meetings to look at the day’s admissions and scans seem to have been particularly beneficial. Marsh also describes his own life and health issues. This includes managing the death of his own mother, his own child requiring neurosurgery. His marriage clearly broke down but although there are a few comments suggesting work may have played a part, there is little detail about this. Happily however he found a new wife, Kate. There is the interesting relationship between healthcare professionals when one has to take up the sick role. Are we fearful of treating colleagues? Are they aware of the risks more than the average lay person? Are they more forgiving if things go wrong? He describes his own illnesses, retinal detachment which he rather ignored the warning signs of and his fears about going blind and not being able to work. He describes his ankle fracture-dislocation and his own lack of health and safety awareness or perhaps indestructibility (who would cycle to and from work on a push bike in central London without a crash helmet – a neurosurgeon of course). His description of his own doctor’s reactions to him is very interesting especially to those of us who have to treat colleagues. He recognises the importance of having a space in which to reflect. He built a room at home. He bought large red sofas for the operating theatre suite at work. The chapter Akinetic Mutism deals with Marsh visiting a nursing home where patients lie in a persistent vegetative state. He recognised several by their names and brought home the results of his failures and the resultant lifetime of nursing home care with no quality of life. They had disappeared from his clinics but they were still out there, being cared for by kindly nuns and the like. What is consciousness and what constitutes a valued life. Marsh contemplates about how different patients respond to the knowledge that they are going to die, some had a very dramatic reaction and there were also the issues of how were they to be cared for. Others have a much more measured view and clearly have been able to come to terms with their situation. There is a description of patients waiting to see him and then waiting for scans desperate to know if they are going to live or die. They are being stalked by death and his job is to keep the shadowy figure as far away from them as possible. A very amusing concept is described of tonnes (we are metric now) of medical records being moved around the hospital full of paperwork related to patient’s bodily functions in nursing records like dung beetles! There is a chapter on Marsh’s involvement with NICE and acting as a clinical advisor. He clearly respected the process of the decision making and the thoroughness in which all views were considered. However he recognised he was out of his depth in the theoretical discussions about drugs for treatment. His reaction to hospital hierarchy and administrators, the odd spats with them, but at the same time respect for staff he had known a long time. As was said, he could not do their job and they could not do his. His secretary, Gayle and senior ward nurses he had great respect for and I am sure they loved him dearly. There are many interesting and thought provoking phrases in the book: • The surgeon has known heaven having come very close to hell. This relates to a procedure which was going horribly wrong but in the end it all worked out for the best and the patient was fine, very grateful, but knew nothing of the anguish the surgeon went through to get there. • The value of the doctor’s work as measured solely by the value of his/her patient’s lives. In other words the doctor’s value is only as good as the benefit patients receive from them. An interesting concept which comes from the notion of public service. Certainly reading this book Henry Marsh comes over as recognising he is equal to his patients and their world is as important as his. • The operating is easy. The difficulties lie with the decision making. This is very stark in neurosurgery where the wrong choice can have devastating consequences in terms of quality of life. However all doctors face similar choices and dilemmas every day. Perhaps they are not as immediately devastating but nonetheless require thought and an ability to balance the risks and benefits. • Love can be very selfish. This related to keeping relatives alive when really it would be best to just let them go. • If the patient is going to get damaged, let God do it, rather than you. In other words try not to harm and make things worse yourself. • Patients becoming an object of fear as well as sympathy. After doctors have made a few errors they may come to see patients as a risky entity and fearful of contact with them in case they bite back and the clinician no longer wants to play with fire. • Gratitude all patients have for their doctor when things go well. However demonising when things do not go well. • On risks and complication rates: If it all goes wrong it is 100% disaster for the patient but still only 5% risk for the surgeon. Those are the grim facts. This is an interesting reflection on the many perspectives of being a clinician written in an absorbing and humane manner.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐ A very honest and insightful look into the world of a surgeon
*by M***K on 10 December 2020*

"It's not brain surgery" is up there with "It's not Rocket Science" as a way to make something seem simple, because the alternatives are generally viewed as the pinnacle of difficulty. This book grabbed me because it's by a man who does Brain Surgery every day and very honest about the difficulty of being a human being doing something so difficult. In here you'll find cases of near miraculous recovery, nigh impossible operations that go well restoring those with no hope to health, but also seemingly simple cases that go wrong, sometimes with life-ending (at least life-limiting) results. The writer is honest, too, in describing the cases where he feels the fault was his, either in engendering false hope or in something going wrong. I can only imagine the trauma of those who his 'mistakes' impacted, but equally someone has to be prepared to take these chances for the ones successfully treated to recover. What came through for me is that it's a fine line between success and failure, that, often, Brain Surgery IS incredibly complex and difficult, and that it takes a huge amount of courage to risk the guilt of failing when you have before, but that you are one of only a tiny few have the skills to succeed. An uplifting, heart-breaking, sobering, euphoric read - One of the most unexpected pleasures (and traumas all in one) I've had from a book in recent years.

### ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ An outstanding reflection on medicine, neuroscience and the human experience
*by A***R on 17 March 2014*

I graduated from St. George’s Hospital Medical School in 1991 and well remember doing a neurosurgical attachment at Atkinson Morley’s Hospital in Wimbledon, where Mr. Marsh was a consultant before the hospital moved to the St. George’s site. I found the experience horrifying and the visions of people lying in rows of beds on the old Nightingale wards, shattered psychologically, physically and neurologically, reminiscent of a field hospital at Sevastopol, has stayed with me. This outstanding book is somehow reassuring to me because it shows that the existential awfulness of neurosurgical illnesses and treatments is not lost on all neurosurgeons and Mr. Marsh gives us a page-turning series of vignettes which get to the heart of what it is to be a neurosurgeon (and by extension a doctor of any kind) dealing with these kinds of conditions. Although they are experienced in sharpest relief day in and day out in neurosurgery, this book teases out the dilemmas facing all doctors who deal with life and death illnesses. It is clear that the author’s experience prior to medical school as a geriatric nurse, teacher in Africa and Oxford student of PPE has furnished him with the literary tools and perspective to be able to portray these impossible situations in an eloquent fashion and he brings us uncomfortably close to the anxiety, doubt and equivocation which must affect anyone doing this job who has an ounce of sensitivity. Lest this sound too much like a hagiography, it must be stated that although he comes across as a man of great compassion and sensitivity, the book reveals Mr. Marsh to have more than a few elements of the old school, irascible, patrician consultant surgeon about him. These make for great anecdotes, of course, and he will no doubt be long remembered by his trainees for that, but it is not difficult to see why he is unpopular with some of the more junior surgical consultants who function as NHS apparatchiks, nor with their controllers, the ever burgeoning plethora of new-style NHS managers. Both these groups will be ecstatic to see him retire. Mr. Marsh’s contempt for the idiotic, self-serving bureaucracy, blithe and uncaring of patients’ needs, which the NHS has become is well-expressed and will be shared by many of his generation and those a little younger. He’s a prickly dinosaur, alright, but one with his heart in the right place who has much to say and says it in a compelling way. Buy this book if you are: Interested in life and death. Interested in medicine. Interested in neuroscience and the roots of consciousness. Interested in what it is to be a doctor. Interested in what it is to be a person. Interested in the search for meaning. Interested in the philosophy of healthcare. Interested in a thought-provoking, entertaining read, which you won’t be able to put down. Don’t buy it if you: Are feeling psychologically fragile. Are unable to deal with paradox, nuance and not having a clear answer. This book deserves to become a bestseller and to reach a broad audience, both due to its content and the quality of its writing. I don’t know if it will or not, but it is certainly a profound addition to the corpus of human literature. (Disclosure: I am a GP, recently moved to practise abroad, partly because I couldn’t stand the NHS any more. I haven’t seen Mr. Marsh since 1990 and he wouldn’t know me from Adam. He wouldn’t have known me from Adam then, so I’m certainly not puffing the book through any personal connection.)

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*Last updated: 2026-05-24*