TOW #8 - IRB - Do No Harm

Henry Marsh’s Do No Harm, details different cases he operates on in his career.  With the life of a surgeon, especially a brain surgeon, life is never guaranteed.  Marsh’s book includes cases of both life and death, and the feelings involved with it.  Marsh, a well-known surgeon in Britain, writes his book closer to old age, rather than midway or early on in his career.  This allows him reflect on morals and ideas he has created during his career.  He specifically emphasized being honest and hiding feelings while being a doctor.  He wants patients to feel like they are aware of everything but he does not want them to see the emotion he feels and make them afraid.  Although this book may be for those who can relate to him, like other surgeons, his book is more directed toward the public and others who are battling their own emotions.  One of his last chapters, titled “Anaesthesia Dolorosa” is about a woman who lost feeling to part of her face.  It was described as a “severe numbness on that side of the face, an unpleasant phenomenon, though one with which most people can come to terms.  A few, however, do not and instead they are driven almost mad by the numbness” (Marsh 273).  The fact that this woman had experienced a lot of pain from the losing of feeling creates a parallel structure between Marsh and the patient’s life.  As a surgeon, he hides the pain of losing patients or ruining their lives and tries to avoid it.  This reflects on the condition, Anaesthesia Dolorosa.  He fears that ignoring these feelings will ruin his life and create someone he doesn’t like or even recognize.  This parallel structure adds to the fact that one should not ignore their emotions and instead embrace them.