Do No Harm

A New York Times Bestseller Shortlisted for both the Guardian First Book Prize and the Costa Book Award Longlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction A Finalist for the Pol Roger Duff Cooper Prize A Finalist for the Wellcome Book Prize A Financial Times Best Book of the Year An Economist Best Book of the Year A Washington Post Notable Book of the Year What is it like to be a brain surgeon? How does it feel to hold someone's life in your hands, to cut into the stuff that creates thought, feeling, and reason? How do you live with the consequences of performing a potentially lifesaving operation when it all goes wrong? In neurosurgery, more than in any other branch of medicine, the doctor's oath to "do no harm" holds a bitter irony. Operations on the brain carry grave risks. Every day, leading neurosurgeon Henry Marsh must make agonizing decisions, often in the face of great urgency and uncertainty. If you believe that brain surgery is a precise and exquisite craft, practiced by calm and detached doctors, this gripping, brutally honest account will make you think again. With astonishing compassion and candor, Marsh reveals the fierce joy of operating, the profoundly moving triumphs, the harrowing disasters, the haunting regrets, and the moments of black humor that characterize a brain surgeon's life. Do No Harm provides unforgettable insight into the countless human dramas that take place in a busy modern hospital. Above all, it is a lesson in the need for hope when faced with life's most difficult decisions.

"On Epidemics" by Hippocrates (translated by Francis Adams). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

“Crammed with provocative insights, raw emotion, and heartbreaking dilemmas,” (The New York Times) First, Do No Harm is a powerful examination of how life and death decisions are made at a major metropolitan hospital in Houston, as told through the stories of doctors, patients, families, and hospital administrators facing unthinkable choices. What is life worth? And when is a life worth living? Journalist Lisa Belkin examines how these questions are asked and answered over one dramatic summer at Hermann Hospital in Houston, Texas. In an account that is fascinating, revealing, and almost novelistic in its immediacy, Belkin takes us inside a major hospital and introduces us to the people who must make life and death decisions every day. As we walk through the hallways of the hospital we meet a young pediatrician who must decide whether to perform a risky last-ditch surgery on a teenager who has spent most of his fifteen years in a hospital; we watch as new parents battle with doctors over whether to disconnect their fragile, premature twins from the machine that keeps them breathing; we are in the operating room as a poor immigrant, paralyzed from a gunshot in the neck, is asked by doctors whether or not he wishes to stay alive; we witness the worry of a kidney specialist as he decides whether or not to transfer an uninsured baby to the county hospital down the road. We experience critical moments in the lives of these real people as Belkin explores challenging issues and questions involving medical ethics, human suffering, modern technology, legal liability, and financial reality. As medical technology advances, the choices grow more complicated. How far should we go to save a life? Who decides? And who pays?

Someone is stalking the UCLA Medical Center -- a depraved madman who is preying upon the staff, particularly those who are young and female. No stranger to the terrible ravages of senseless violence, E.R. Chief Dr. David Spier must keep the emergency room running smoothly and efficiently, even as his terrified co-workers wonder who will be the next victim. But when the monster himself is dragged into the E.R. in handcuffs -- hideously burned, suffering, and begging for mercy -- the nightmare is far from over ... it has only just begun. A single act of humanity is about to unleash a bloody wave of horror that threatens to engulf everyone and everything Dr. Spier cares about. His most sacred oath as a healer has become a death sentence -- for David Spier ... and for a city under siege.

The contributors to this volume show how healthcare professionals, with the best intentions of providing excellent holistic healthcare, can nonetheless perpetuate violence against vulnerable patients.

In Robert Pobi's thriller Do No Harm, a series of suicides and accidental deaths in the medical community are actually well-disguised murders and only Lucas Page can see the pattern and discern the truth that no one else believes. Lucas Page is a polymath, astrophysicist, professor, husband, father of five adopted children, bestselling author, and ex-FBI agent—emphasis on "ex." Severely wounded after being caught in an explosion, Page left the FBI behind and put his focus on the rebuilding the rest of his life. But Page is uniquely gifted in being able to recognize patterns that elude others, a skill that brings the F.B.I. knocking at his door again and again. Lucas Page's wife Erin loses a friend, a gifted plastic surgeon, to suicide and Lucas begins to realize how many people Erin knew that have died in the past year, in freak accidents and now suicide. Intrigued despite himself, Page begins digging through obituaries and realizes that there's a pattern—a bad one. These deaths don't make sense unless the doctors are being murdered, the target of a particularly clever killer. This time, the FBI wants as little to do with Lucas as he does with them so he's left with only one option—ignore it and go back to his normal life. But then, the pattern reveals that the next victim is likely to be...Erin herself.

Echoing the Hippocratic oath, a developmental economist and president of the Collaborative for Development Action calls for a creative redesign of international assistance programs to ensure that they become part of the solution and do not reinforce divisions among warring factions. Includes a bibliographic essay. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

This collection brings together essays from leading figures in the field of medical law and ethics which address the key issues currently challenging scholars in the field. It has also been compiled as a lasting testimony to the work of one of the most eminent scholars in the area, Professor Ken Mason. The collection marks the academic crowning of a career which has laid one of the foundation stones of an entire discipline. The wide-ranging contents and the standing of the contributors mean that the volume will be an invaluable resource for anyone studying or working in medical law or medical ethics.