*Do No Harm*

I loved this book, which is written by a neurosurgeon with a knowledge of behavioral economics (he even has designed a talk  “All My Worst Mistakes,” based on Daniel Kahneman’s work).  The subtitle is Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery and the author is Henry Marsh.  Here is one bit:

…as the brain has the consistency of jelly a sucker is the brain surgeon’s principal tool.

Here is another:

All that really matters is that I am as sure as I can be that the decision to operate is correct and that no other surgeon can do the operation any better than I can.  This is not as much of a problem for me now that I have been operating on brain tumours for many years, but it can be a moral dilemma for a younger surgeon.  If they do not take on difficult cases, how will they ever get any better?  But what if they have a colleague who is more experienced?

And another:

Few anaesthetists believe what surgeons tell them.

How about this one?:

‘There are operations where one really doesn’t know what’s going to happen,’ I muttered to Mike.

Highly recommended, it is already out in the UK, in the U.S. coming out in May 2015.  It has made many best of the year lists in the UK.  Here are some related videos.