Henry Marsh

Misdiagnosis, undertreatment, overtreatment, or surgical injuries are just a few of the medical errors that commonly occur when providing health care. Even though medical mistakes are preventable adverse effects of medical care, they are inevitable. Therefore it is important to view ourselves as fallible human beings and to see future mistakes as a tool for further development rather than “just a mistake”.

As medical errors are not a well-enough discussed subject, especially for how often they happen, Dr. Marsh’s talk will be centered around the importance of teamwork in modern medicine, decision-making, and the difficulty of admitting to mistakes.

Henry Marsh is a model of how we can help progress into an environment based on working together, kindness to patients, and also into “evidence-based” medicine. His long career in the medical field is an inspiration for future doctors. Henry Marsh studied Politics at Oxford University and then Medicine in London and subsequently trained as a neurosurgeon. He pioneered the awake craniotomy technique for intrinsic brain tumors.

His work has been the subject of two major BBC documentaries – “Your Life in their Hands” in 2003 and “The English Surgeon” in 2009 which won an Emmy award. His book “Do No Harm”, published in 2014, became an international bestseller and has been translated into 34 languages. He has published two further books “Admissions” (in 2017) and “And Finally” (in 2022) which have both been Sunday Times bestsellers. Although retired from the NHS he continues to lecture, teach and work in Ukraine (since 1992), Nepal, and Albania. He is a passionate defender of the British National Health Service and was made a CBE by HM the Queen in 2010.