Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery

by Henry Marsh

pituitary stalk, the fragile structure that connects the all-important pea-sized pituitary gland to the brain, which co-ordinates all the body’s hormonal systems. It sits in a little cavity, known as the sella, just beneath the optic nerves, which is why Melanie’s tumour is called a ‘supra-sellar’ meningioma.

I had no idea how she might react, but she reached out to me and held me in her arms and consoled me for my failure, even though it was she who had lost her daughter.

Doctors need to be held accountable, since power corrupts. There must be complaints procedures and litigation, commissions of enquiry, punishment and compensation. At the same time if you do not hide or deny any mistakes when things go wrong, and if your patients and their families know that you are distressed by whatever happened, you might, if you are lucky, receive the precious gift of forgiveness. As far as I know Darren’s mother did not pursue her complaint but I fear that if she cannot find it in her heart to forgive the doctors who looked after her son in his final illness she will be haunted forever by his dying cry.

Coning refers to the way in which the brain is squeezed like toothpaste out of the hole in the base of the skull when the pressure in the skull becomes very high. The extruded part of the brain is cone-shaped. It is a fatal process.

If my patients’ brains could feel me touching them they would need a second brain somewhere to register the sensation.

‘It’s been a wonderful life. We have said everything there is to say.’