The English Surgeon...

After a long day I sat down with a homebrew and turned on PBS (I have the very, very, very basic cable subscription). I happened upon a fascinating documentary called "The English Surgeon". Here is a summary of the documentary....





What is it like to have God like surgical powers, yet to struggle against your own humanity? What is it like to try and save a life, and yet to fail? This film follows brain surgeon Henry Marsh as he openly confronts the dilemmas of the doctor patient relationship on his latest mission to Ukraine.
Henry is one of London's foremost brain surgeons, but despite being a pioneer in his field he stills rides an old pushbike to work and worries himself sick about the damage he can inflict on his patients. "When push comes to shove we can afford to lose an arm or a leg, but I am operating on people's thoughts and feelings...and if something goes wrong I can destroy that person's character ……forever".
Driven by the need to help others where he can, Henry has been going out to Kyiv for over 15 years to help improve upon the medieval brain surgery he witnessed there during his first visit in 1992. Today the patients see him as the great saviour from the West, desperate parents want him to save their child, and his Ukrainian colleague Igor Kurilets sees him as a guru and a benefactor. But for all the direct satisfaction he gets from going, Henry also sees grossly misdiagnosed patients, children who he can't save, and a lack of equipment and trained supporting staff. "It's like selling your soul to the devil, but what can you do? My son had a brain tumour as a baby and I was desperate for someone to help me. I simply can't walk away from that need in others".



I have to say this was an excellent documentary on the painful realities of everyday people facing issues with their brains, primarily tumors. I think the one moving moment was when they just finished a successful brain surgery on a young man who had severe bouts of epilepsy. They found the tumor and removed it and within 24 hours he was up and eating...which I found fascinating in terms of a turn around.



Yet, after this surgery Henry and Dr. Kurilets meet with a young woman who was having medical problems. Her thought was that she was bitten by a tick which gave her encephilitis, however Dr. Marsh sees something different. He sees a deep seeded tumor which is inoperable. He immediately says there is no hope for her and all of a sudden Dr. Marsh and the Dr. Kurilets are faced with having to tell this woman her fate. Marsh's thoughts were that she wouldn't survive 5 years and before she dies she will go blind and have other complications.


All of this discussion happened right in front of her. The woman doesn't understand English and so Marsh and Kurilets are trying to figure out what to say to her. Its obvious that the Kurilets is affected by the scenario and Dr. Marsh, who has seen this before, is still humbled by the situation. Kurilets simply asks "What do you say?" and Marsh says "You tell her the truth, but don't do it alone, have family with her..."

This discussion between the two doctors turns to dealing with patients that have no more solutions and ultimately no hope. They don't know how to deal with the idea of no hope when faced with this situation. However, I found it sort of ironic that amidst all of this discussion there are two rather large Orthodox Icons on the wall over Marsh' head. One, from what I could tell, was of Christ the Teacher. As sad as this all was, I wanted to say to them, "turn around and look at the wall!!!"

Anyways, I recommend you check out this docummentary, its sad, its happy, it brings a very real picture from the eyes of a surgeon, who I have found to be quite influential...anyone else see it?