The 2017 National Book Critics Circle (NBCC) Finalist,
International Bestseller, and a Kirkus Best Nonfiction Book of
2017!
**
"Marsh has retired, which means he's taking a thorough inventory of his
life. His reflections and recollections make Admissions an even more
introspective memoir than his first, if such a thing is possible."**
--The New York Times
"Disarmingly frank storytelling...his reflections on death and dying
equal those in Atul Gawande's excellent Being Mortal." --The
Economist
Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical frontline.
There have been exhilarating highs and devastating lows, but his love
for the practice of neurosurgery has never wavered.
Following the publication of his celebrated New York Times bestseller
Do No Harm, Marsh retired from his full-time job in England to work
pro bono in Ukraine and Nepal. In Admissions he describes the
difficulties of working in these troubled, impoverished countries and
the further insights it has given him into the practice of medicine.
Marsh also faces up to the burden of responsibility that can come with
trying to reduce human suffering. Unearthing memories of his early days
as a medical student, and the experiences that shaped him as a young
surgeon, he explores the difficulties of a profession that deals in
probabilities rather than certainties, and where the overwhelming urge
to prolong life can come at a tragic cost for patients and those who
love them.
Reflecting on what forty years of handling the human brain has taught
him, Marsh finds a different purpose in life as he approaches the end of
his professional career and a fresh understanding of what matters to us
all in the end.
