Home > Work > Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery
41 " The corridors and rooms were starting to fill with unfamiliar faces and patients the size of small whales being wheeled past on trolleys. "
― Henry Marsh , Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery
42 " Every surgeon carries within himself a small cemetery, where from time to time he goes to pray – a place of bitterness and regret, where he must look for an explanation for his failures. "
43 " The eyes are said by poets to be the windows to the soul but they are also windows to the brain: examining the retina gives a good idea of the state of the brain as it is directly connected to it. "
44 " I am reaching the end of my career this detachment has started to fade. I am less frightened by failure – I have come to accept it and feel less threatened by it and hopefully have learned from the mistakes I made in the past. I can dare to be a little less detached. Besides, with advancing age I can no longer deny that I am made of the same flesh and blood as my patients and that I am equally vulnerable. "
45 " La vida sin esperanzas es tremendamente difícil, pero con cuánta facilidad consigue la esperanza, en definitiva, volvernos necios a todos. "
46 " To the man with a hammer, it is said, all things look like nails. When brain surgeons look at brain scans they see things that they think require surgery and I am, alas, no exception. "
47 " It used to be called angor animi – the anguish of the soul – the feeling that some people have, when they are having a heart attack, that they are about to die. Even now, more than thirty years later, I can see very clearly the dying man’s despairing expression as he looked at me as I turned away. "
48 " La neurociencia nos dice que es altamente improbable que tengamos alma, pues cuanto pensamos y sentimos no es ni más ni menos que el parloteo electroquímico de nuestras neuronas. Nuestro sentido de la identidad, nuestros sentimientos y pensamientos, el amor que mostramos a los demás, nuestras esperanzas y ambiciones, nuestros odios y temores, todo eso muere cuando el cerebro muere. "
49 " Next morning I showed her brain scan to the juniors at "
50 " Just as it is irresistible to save a life, it is also very difficult to tell somebody that I cannot save them "
51 " CSF used to be called “gin-clear” when there was no blood or infection in it,’ I say to Jeff. ‘But probably we’re now supposed to use alcohol-free terminology.’ I "
52 " You might think the operation has been a success because the patient leaves the hospital alive but if you saw them years later – as I often do – you would realize that the result of the operation was a human disaster. "
53 " The best is the enemy of the good, "
54 " I could have a room to myself, with a carpet and with my own loo – details that are very important to patients but not to NHS administrators and architects. Nor, I am afraid to say, do many doctors care about these things, until they become patients and come to understand that patients in NHS hospitals rarely get peace, rest or quiet and never a good night’s sleep. I "
55 " How are you feeling?’ I asked. ‘Fine,’ he replied with a tired smile. ‘Well done!’ I replied, as I think patients need to be congratulated for their surviving just as much as the surgeons should be congratulated for doing their job well. ‘It’s "
56 " We lauhed together for a long time. When we had first met, her eyes were dull with pain-killing drugs and if she tried to talk, her face would contort with agonizing pain. I thought how radiantly beautiful she now looked. She stood up to leave and went to the door but then came back and kissed me. `I hope I never see you again,' she said. `I quite understand,' I replied. "
57 " Daniel Kahneman’s book Thinking, Fast and Slow, "
58 " The ITU had had a busy week and there were ten patients in the large and brightly-lit warehouse of a room, all but one of them unconscious, lying on their backs and attached to a forest of machinery with flashing lights and digital read-outs the colour of rubies and emeralds. Each patient has their own nurse, and in the middle of the room there is a large desk with computer monitors and many members of staff talking on the phone or working on the computers or snatching a plastic cup of tea in between carrying out the constant tasks that are needed in intensive care. "
59 " Few – if any – of these patients would survive or emerge unscathed from whatever it was that had damaged their brains. "
60 " He was transferred on a Friday afternoon – never a good time to fall seriously ill "