A review by dustycabbage
Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh

3.5

3.65 stars. I've dabbled into my fair share of medical memoirs, and this one was just largely okay. Granted, I do think this one is a little less digestible compared to others, but that is the nature of neuroscience and explaining it to people with virtually no medical understanding (me). The terminology generally went through one eye and out the other, but I was appreciative of Marsh's thoroughness in explaining anecdotes. What I found unique about this memoir though, was how it unapologetically divulged one's mistakes. Like Marsh highlights in the beginning, the culture around medical narratives is very rarely about one's failures. This book is rife with that, and whether they were errors on Marsh's part or oversight in a general sense, it was haunting to read about tiny mistakes that changed patients' lives forever. A part of why I read medical narratives is to reinforce for myself my desire to never enter the field (in addition to my great reverance and awe for people who persist in this line of work) and this book surely did that for me.