246 books
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489 voters
It is here that we encounter the central theme of existentialism: to live is to suffer, to survive is to find meaning in the suffering.
“When I tell a patient that I think I should do their operation under local anaesthetic they usually look a little shocked. In fact the brain cannot itself feel pain since pain is a phenomenon produced within the brain.”
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - as seen on 'life-changing' BBC documentary Confessions of a Brain Surgeon
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery - as seen on 'life-changing' BBC documentary Confessions of a Brain Surgeon
“Most medical students go through a brief period when they develop all manner of imaginary illnesses – I myself had leukaemia for at least four days – until they learn, as a matter of self-preservation, that illnesses happen to patients, not to doctors.”
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
“Patients in persistent vegetative state – or PVS as it is called for short – seem to be awake because their eyes are open, yet they show no awareness or responsiveness to the outside world. They are conscious, some would say, but there is no content to their consciousness. They have become an empty shell, there is nobody at home. Yet recent research with functional brain scans shows this is not always the case. Some of these patients, despite being mute and unresponsive, seem to have some kind of activity going on in their brains, and some kind of awareness of the outside world. It is not, however, at all clear what it means. Are they in some kind of perpetual dream state? Are they in heaven, or in hell? Or just dimly aware, with only a fragment of consciousness of which they themselves”
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
“Damn our lives are such misery. —Mankumari Bose”
― Harbart
― Harbart
“We have achieved most as surgeons when our patients recover completely and forget us completely. All patients are immensely grateful at first after a successful operation but if the gratitude persists it usually means that they have not been cured of the underlying problem and that they fear that they may need us in the future. They feel that they must placate us, as though we were angry gods or at least the agents of an unpredictable fate.”
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
― Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death, and Brain Surgery
Prachi Singh’s 2024 Year in Books
Take a look at Prachi Singh’s Year in Books, including some fun facts about their reading.
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