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Marsh has now retired as senior consultant neurosurgeon at the Atkinson Morley Wing of St George's Hospital in London. I sensed that he's in that post-retirement phase when you haven't ceased to be who you used to be nor yet become who you now are and his life's a mixture of being a neurosurgeon abroad - in Nepal, Ukraine and Texas - and restoring an abandoned lock keeper's cottage in Oxfordshire. It's a big move to make, particularly for a man whose job was his life, whose job defined him.
If anything Marsh is more irascible, more curmudgeonly than he was in ''Do No Harm'' (particularly when speaking about bureaucracy and politicians) , but there are still flashes of his black humour. A lengthy career as a brain surgeon has turned him into a pragmatist : I was occasionally shocked by the ease with which the conclusion would be reached that someone was going to die - but it's experience speaking so what else should I have expected? That's offset by the care and compassion which he has for his patients and his readiness to be critical of, and honest about his own actions.
Marsh is a fine writer with the ability to tell a good story. He has a comedian's sense of timing. His disarming frankness came over well in my audio download, but I'll confess that I regret not having bought the harback instead. Whilst having the author as the narrator does ensure that there's not an added layer of interpretation, there were occasions when I wasn't ''completely'' clear about what had been said, particularly when he was cross about something. It is, though, a download I'll go back to.
If this book appeals then we can also recommend [[When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi]] and [[Direct Red by Gabriel Weston]].
 
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