It was fear of suffering before dying, and of, you know, lingering on, being in a hospital bed. And I hate hospitals, always have done. I think they're horrible places, even though I spent most of my life working in them. No, it's really - death itself holds no fears for me at all, as far as - I love the famous 18th century philosopher David Hume, who on his deathbed was asked, aren't you terribly worried about what will happen after death? And he said, no, I'm no more worried about not existing after death than I'm worried about not existing before I was born. And that is my view about death. I don't believe in an afterlife. But I know, as a doctor, that dying can be very unpleasant.
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HM
Henry Marsh
Neurosurgeon and writer
United Kingdom · b. 1950
Science and medicine
About
British neurosurgeon, for three decades a consultant at St George's Hospital in London, and the author of Do No Harm, Admissions and And Finally. Diagnosed with advanced prostate cancer in early 2020, with a seventy-five per cent probability of recurrence within five years, he wrote And Finally (2022) about crossing over from doctor to patient. He remained alive and in remission at the time of this pass, which makes him the least terminal of the six people here.
9 answers
what’s the difference? If I die in two years’ time, what will I do between now and then which I don’t want to do now? The main reason for living longer now is for the sake of my family and my wife. And this is not rationalist bravado entirely. I’ve had a wonderful life. Yes, I’ve done a lot of things I shouldn’t have done. But you know, I’ve had a full, complete life, and there’s nothing more I can do to complete it. Dying when you’re younger is obviously a totally different situation. Or losing a child. I mean, that’s beyond words.
Sufficiently well to see Johnson and Truss and then two or three days later, she’s dead. I thought, that’s fantastic. That’s something to celebrate. That’s a great death.
I was terribly upset at the time, because I felt I had betrayed [my wife] Kate and my family by being so stupid. But I’ve accepted it.
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