The English Surgeon
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The English Surgeon

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Ratings: 8.00/10 from 65 users.

The English SurgeonHenry Thomas Marsh, (born 1950) is a leading British neurosurgeon, and a pioneer of neurosurgical advances in Ukraine.

Marsh originally read Politics, Philosophy and Economics at Oxford, achieving First Class Honours, before graduating with Honours in Medicine from London University. He is now the senior consultant neurosurgeon at the Atkinson Morley Wing at St George's Hospital, 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 in 2004, which won the Royal Television Society Gold Medal. He has been working with neurosurgeons in the former Soviet Union, mainly in Ukraine, since 1992 and his work there was the subject of the recent award-winning BBC Storyville film The English Surgeon. Marsh was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2010 Birthday Honours.

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.

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.

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Alexandru Matei
Alexandru Matei
11 years ago

it's in the genes more likely :)

Mike H
Mike H
12 years ago

In Soviet Russia, Surgeon brains you!

PavolvsBitch
PavolvsBitch
12 years ago

Psychopolitics; Jewish-Communist Brainwashing Techniques, A Synthesis on the Jewish-Communist Textsbook on Psychopolitics. A New Transcription of Kenneth Goff's classic by Alexi Drobychev. Read it.

Now this is all taken from the serpent's mouth, so to speak and cannot be refuted. Brain surgery and electroshock are not used for the purposes of healing as they cannot heal but are used as a severe punishment in order to induce total obedience. The more brutality, the more obedience is instilled. Only psychopaths could devise the annihilation of free will for the purposes of totalitarian obedience; only those victims of these methods could over-ride their humanity in carrying out these commands on others.

Read Russian Communist history, Chinese Communist history, North Korean Communist history ANY Communist history to see who the communists are and how we are immersed in their insanity. And, by the way, the term paranoid insanity is to be applied by the psychopolitical operators and their dupes to anyone saying this or implying it. I'm just paraphrasing their own words.

This film is simply a classic snow job to cover the tracks as to motivation, intention and purpose; look at the lunatic and hear clearly what he says; just knockabout woodwork (we're inanimate objects) just making a packing case (more like a 'head-case') meaning re-modelling, re-moulding, re-shaping the human experience, reducing it to robotic slave.

StevenLJones
StevenLJones
12 years ago

Vlatko I hope you find more documentaries like this. This has heart. It isn't simply a dissecting of fact. It hits at the root of our humanity.

Morsie
Morsie
12 years ago

What a wonderful yet, at times, a distressing documentary. I pray that one day Igor will have his hospital built and have the finest surgeons performing life saving procedures. That doco will stay with me for a very long time. Thank you Vlatko.

kris sto
kris sto
12 years ago

''If we don't try to help others, we are nothing, nothing at all''....Heartbreaking stories......

Petar Vitanovich
Petar Vitanovich
12 years ago

Anyone one who talks s*** about this man is insane. Just look at the faces of the people he is trying to save, plus last time i checked he isn't charging for his service. Yes, people have a point when they say it's like he is playng "god" but they don't understand thats the nature of medicine, every doctor plays god, when he attempts to heal you, or tell you how much longer you have to live. Grow up people, and give credit where its due.

PavolvsBitch
PavolvsBitch
12 years ago

The methods of brain surgery are as crude as they ever were; mind surgery is more subtle; opinion surgery, subtler still, eh moderators?

PavolvsBitch
PavolvsBitch
12 years ago

Shame Atkinson Morley can't manage the other end of the business of primary patient care; basic toileting. Neither can they manage to identify the source of painful bowel movements (if patients can move in order to move their bowels at all) as hemmorhoids requiring a painless ten minute procedure to alleviate. Patients are radiated, radiated and then radiated some more. They are kept in unsunlit blueish wards, have no fresh air or outside variation. This guy's a typical klutz, getting off on the kudos of 'brain surgery' at the expense of the whole patient. Get real; he wouldn't have been awarded Jack S*** if he'd done any real good for humanity. Psychodriller. This type of torture used to cause outrage which is why mental institutions were closed; nowadays, oh, these maniacs are lauded as heroes. Sad times indeed.

Ninnaninna
Ninnaninna
12 years ago

To me this is everything documentary film should be about.

rtiom
rtiom
12 years ago

I had to stop watching this. I cannot handle watching those poor people in Russia. The country and its leaders have sold out. They disgust me, and what they are doing to the Russian people is unbelievable. It's so corrupt through and through, that almost one out of 3 people is willing to forget his or her morals for money.

Domus Canus.
Domus Canus.
12 years ago

In the medical world it's not often you see surgeons as finely tuned as these 2 men offering their vast knowledge and experience in the pursuit of extending life to people who are without hope. Under primitive circumstances they operate on their patients with ancient technology, Henry drags used throw-away parts from the UK as Igor battles his enemies and the bureaucracy at large in a country where life seems rather worthless. There is no good way to give bad news to patients, inevitably it's a death sentence as we witnessed several times during this documentary. I must confess to chuckling as I watched out 2 heroes rooting around in an outdoor market for drill bits and so forth, and the battery almost giving up the ghost in what passed for an operating theater. Beautifully done, Henry and Igor. One day Igor, I wish a hospital for you. Best wishes.

leonardobdas
leonardobdas
12 years ago

i think this is a must watch. wow.

Placeboaddict
Placeboaddict
12 years ago

Heartwarming story. Fascination individual(s) facing impossible adversities.

It's sad to behold how the former Soviet countries are left behind, after a economical collapse brought on by a war of nothing.

And medical instruments = racket... what a dirty business.