Monday, August 10, 2015

Do No Harm

    I just finished reading "Do No Harm" by Henry Marsh. Do no harm is an idea that medicine bases its  practice on so the title is most appropriate. Much of what Henry Marsh writes about is not doing harm and how he agonized over that situation.

   I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book as it gave a look into the brain, brain surgery and medical practice.

    For most of us the brain is a mystery. For neurosurgeons like Henry Marsh, they know it's parts, how it works and what they can do. He tells about all the different tumors which may be found in the brain. Each type of tumor has a special method of surgery. For some tumors surgery is not an option. In many cases the tumor grows back and is worse than the first time.

   Henry Marsh finds it difficult when a patient or family wants more surgery and Henry Marsh knows that very little if any good will be accomplished. There are times when surgery should not be done and Marsh did the surgery. This bothered him.

    Another common brain surgery is clamping off aneurysms and repairing other blood vessel problems. Then in surgery he has to work around blood vessels as a major proportion of our blood is in the head and if a vessel is cut it gets very bloody in a hurry.

   Henry Marsh was very honest about mistakes he made and it bothered him terribly. He made sure that patients were aware of the risks.

    Henry Marsh was very honest about his opinions of the health system and how you have to jump through the hoops. Many times it's useless to jump through hoops.

    I enjoyed this book and highly recommend that you read it.