Henry Marsh in His World.

Abstract

English neurosurgeon Henry Marsh has written a memoir Do No Harm Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery (St. Martin’s. New York, 2015) deserving of attention from a broad range of readers: clinicians, administrators, a general public interested in what the practice of medicine and surgery is really like, and those who seek to write honestly about the course of their lives and careers. In a recent issue of this Journal (53[6], pp. 1923–1929) I wrote an essay entitled Harvey Cushing, M.D., in his World based on the life and historical context of one of the great pioneers in the field of neurosurgery Harvey Cushing (1869–1939). It was first given as a Grand Rounds presentation made to the Department of Neurosurgery at the New York Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Center in New York in 2006. Before and since that occasion I have spent a good deal of time and effort thinking and talking about writing with friends, colleagues, and contributors to the Journal. From that perspective I have come to believe how necessary it is for those who write to keep in mind the words of Ernest Hemingway, ‘‘All you have to do is to write one true sentence.’’ Reading Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm only confirms for me Hemingway’s admonition. Henry Marsh did not come to his vocation as a neurosurgeon easily or quickly. He was schooled in a very traditional British way in a public (for them private) school and then Oxford where he did not study the sciences but instead pursued a degree in Politics, Philosophy, and Economics. It was only after an extended period of searching that he engaged in course work that would make it possible for him to attend medical school. In the USA this is popularly known as a ‘‘post baccalaureate’’ course of study where those who previously have shown no interest in attending medical school pursue a program that will allow them, like Henry Marsh, to go forward and apply to medical school after all. He then would undergo the rigors of what we know here in the USA as residency training. Even then the path toward satisfaction was not altogether clear. Perhaps surgery would be