Book Review: Admissions by Henry Marsh

Quick book review while I'm on the road in New Zealand.  New Zealand is quite a big place, and over the last week I've covered about 1500 miles of road on the south island.  During this time, my husband has done an excellent job of keeping us on the left side of the road while I've been reading aloud from Dr. Henry Marsh's newest book, Admissions.   This book follows on the doctor's wildly successful book, Do No Harm which I reviewed a few months ago.  Click here for a link to that review.

This book was a great read, and especially so if you have read Do No Harm.  Knowing a bit about his life and work when reading this book, you can see how his retirement from his full-time brain surgery work in England and his fear of being stricken by Alzheimers in his advancing age have led him to reflect on his life and career in this book.

This book again talks about surgeries and their outcomes for the doctor, the medical staff, the patient and the patient's family.  It also talks about Dr. Marsh's volunteer medical work in Nepal and Ukraine.  He discusses his post retirement medical work and his ongoing spiritual journey.  Additionally, the doctor works hard to get back into a big personal love of his, woodworking.  The woodworking is secondary to his purchase of a run-down shed in the town he grew up in.  While he is rehabilitating the property, he is also reminiscing about his past and looking forward to his future putterings in his workshop.

Admissions is also a confessional of sorts.  Henry Marsh discusses surgeries gone wrong, past indignities he's suffered and the torment he has put others through.  Throughout the book the doctor shows great empathy for his fellow man, and in a way is making things right in his past.

This book is a great read about a man's professional and personal life.  It is full of wit, shocking medical situations and a caretaker's perspective on life as well as death.