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  • Admissions

  • Life as a Brain Surgeon
  • Written by: Henry Marsh
  • Narrated by: Henry Marsh
  • Length: 7 hrs and 53 mins
  • 4.7 out of 5 stars (9 ratings)

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Admissions

Written by: Henry Marsh
Narrated by: Henry Marsh
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Publisher's Summary

This program is read by the author

An international best seller

Henry Marsh has spent a lifetime operating on the surgical front line. 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 best seller 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 40 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.

©2017 Henry Marsh (P)2017 Macmillan Audio

What the critics say

"Consistently entertaining.... Honesty is abundantly apparent here - a quality as rare and commendable in elite surgeons as one suspects it is in memoirists." ( The Guardian)
"Disarmingly frank storytelling...his reflections on death and dying equal those in Atul Gawande's excellent Being Mortal." ( The Economist)

What listeners say about Admissions

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  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Not a happy guy...either in his profession or in his preparation for retirement.

Overall, that cover picture says it all. Basically not a happy guy...living through the changes that all older surgeons must experience around them. Gruff, lacking in compassion through rationalization, and dreading his own retirement. Disappointment lurks throughout.

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    4 out of 5 stars
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    3 out of 5 stars

Engaging, but not quite as good as Do No Harm

It’s unfair to hold an author’s book to his previous successes, but I couldn’t help but reminisce about Do No Harm and how much better it was during my time listening to this book. His style of storytelling is very much the same (very enjoyable and engaging), but the stories just lacked the same oomf that they did in Do No Harm. Read on it’s own, it is a worthwhile read. Read after Do No Harm, maybe not.

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  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
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Thought Provoking

It’s not often you feel like you are having a conversation about life with a neurosurgeon — someone who has seen life and death drama every day, and now faces his own mortality. A sobering, yet delightful, book. #Audible1

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Very enjoyable listen...

I enjoyed every aspect of this book. The subject matter, the simple sensible pace, the wonderful voice of the reader !

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Very deep

I got lost in the words that were so elegantly said but so emotionally expressed. I felt as if I was in every room, every moment, not just watching this performance playout but understanding a truth, a lesson of life.

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