Henry Marsh (neurosurgeon)

Henry Thomas Marsh CBE FRCS (born 5 March 1950) is an English neurosurgeon, and a pioneer of neurosurgical advances in Ukraine. His widely acclaimed memoir Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery was published in 2014.[1] According to The Economist, this memoir is "so elegantly written it is little wonder some say that in Mr Marsh neurosurgery has found its Boswell."[2] A further memoir Admissions: A life in brain surgery was published in 2017.

For the Irish surgeon born in 1790, see Henry Marsh (surgeon).

Henry Marsh

CBE FRCS
Marsh visiting Ternopil National Medical University in September 2016
Born (1950-03-05) 5 March 1950
NationalityBritish
Alma materUniversity College
Known forNeurosurgical advances in Ukraine.
Spouse(s)Kate Fox
Scientific career
FieldsNeurosurgery

Early life and education

Marsh was born in 1950, in the countryside outside Oxford, to a German mother and a father who was an academic lawyer at Oxford University.[3] Marsh attended the Dragon School in Oxford.[4] The family later moved to Clapham in London and was sent to Westminster School, for a while as a boarder. Academically successful, he read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at University College, Oxford University, achieving First Class Honours, before graduating with Honours in Medicine from the Royal Free Medical School. His educational background and its social implications, however, left psychological issues and Marsh, contemplating suicide, was voluntary patient or a while, taking a year off from studying to work as a porter in a northern hospital.[3]

Career

Marsh was until 2015 the senior consultant neurosurgeon at the Atkinson Morley Wing at St George's Hospital, south London, one of the country's largest specialist brain surgery units.

He specialises in operating on the brain under local anaesthetic and was the subject of a major BBC documentary Your Life in Their Hands[5] in 2004, which won the Royal Television Society Gold Medal.

He has been working with neurosurgeons in the former Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine with protégé neurosurgeon Igor Kurilets, since 1992 and his work there was the subject of the BBC Storyville film The English Surgeon from 2007.[6]

He has a particular interest in the influence of hospital buildings and design on patient outcomes and staff morale; he has broadcast and lectured widely on this subject.

In 2017, Marsh published Admissions: Life as a Brain Surgeon, a second memoir with Weidenfeld & Nicolson, an imprint of Orion.

Marsh was the castaway on BBC Radio 4's long-running Desert Island Discs in September 2018. His favourite selection was Better Not Look Down by B. B. King.[7]

Awards and honours

Marsh was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.[8] Also in 2010 he presented the Leslie Oliver Oration at Queen's Hospital.[9]

Personal life

He is the youngest of his parents' four children. His parents, the distinguished law reformer Norman Stayner Marsh (1913–2008) and bookshop owner Christiane "Christel" Christinnecke, relocated from Halle in Germany to England in 1939 after his mother had been denounced to the authorities for "making anti-Nazi comments".[10] They married in London in the late summer of 1939.[11]

Henry Marsh is married to the social anthropologist Kate Fox and spends his spare time making furniture and keeping bees.[12] He is a younger brother of the architectural historian Bridget Cherry.[13]

Publications
  • Marsh, Henry (2014). Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 9781780225920.
  • Marsh, Henry (2017). Admissions: A life in Brain Surgery. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 9781474603867.

References
  1. Marsh, Henry (2014). Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery. Orion. ISBN 978-0297869870.
  2. "Books of the Year: Page turners". The Economist. 6 December 2014. Retrieved 7 December 2014.
  3. http://hazeldurbridge.com/henry-marsh-life-brain-surgery/
  4. "OD News". The OD. Vol. 1. Dragon School. 2011. p. 22.
  5. "I was awake during brain surgery". BBC News. BBC. 9 March 2004. Retrieved 19 August 2008.
  6. Sanderson, Greg (28 March 2008). "Brain surgery with a DIY drill". BBC News. BBC. Retrieved 19 August 2008.
  7. Presenter: Kirsty Young; Interviewed Guest: Henry Marsh; Producer: Sarah Taylor (23 September 2018). "Desert Island Discs: Henry Marsh". Desert Island Discs. BBC. BBC Radio 4. Retrieved 28 September 2018.
  8. "No. 59446". The London Gazette (Supplement). 12 June 2010. p. 23.
  9. "Third Annual Leslie Oliver Oration". Neurosurgery News. Barking, Havering and Redbridge University Hospitals NHS Trust. 16 January 2010. Archived from the original on 30 August 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2011.
  10. William Goodhart (27 October 2008). "Norman Marsh". Founding member of the Law Commission, reformer and academic. The Guardian, London. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  11. "Index entry". FreeBMD. ONS. Retrieved 23 September 2018.
  12. Wagner, Erica (March 2014). "Life and death at his fingertips: watching a brain surgeon at work". New Statesman.
  13. Wintle, Angela (11 June 2017). "British neurosurgeon Henry Marsh on his passion for tools, doing up houses and beekeeping". Sunday Times online. Retrieved 15 June 2017.(subscription required)

Further reading
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