Empathy brings hope to humanity

The Thinking Anew column in The Irish Times today

Michael Commane 

Shortly after beginning my job as a hospital chaplain a friend suggested I read Do No Harm: Stories of Life, Death and Brain Surgery by Henry Marsh. I couldn’t put the book down. Henry Marsh was born in 1950, spent his life working as a brain surgeon in London but also helped develop modern neurosurgery in Nepal and Ukraine.

The book has won many awards and I can understand why. He describes  his career as a doctor, the good days and the bad days, the mistakes he made and the extraordinary conversations he had with patients, their families and friends. I met a young doctor who worked with him in London. He told me what you see in the book is exactly who the man is. 

I’ve just finished his latest book And Finally, written in the spring of 2022, in the months immediately after the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s more of the same brilliance, describing his encounters and experiences seen through the eyes of a neurosurgeon but there’s a twist in this book. 

This time he tells the story from the other side. He has been diagnosed with serious prostate cancer. He has that wonderful ability of writing down in such clear words what’s going through his head when he receives his diagnoses.

Henry Marsh comes across as a complete human being. He has no problems acknowledging his failures and shortcomings. He now looks back on his life, knowing how privileged he has been but also realises the silly things he did, including the occasions he should have given more time to his family.

 

But there is an overarching theme right across the two books I have read and that is his humanity, his honesty too. I don’t think he ever once mentioned the word but it’s evidently clear that he is a man of great empathy. He made  time for his patients. All during his 40-year career as a doctor he made it his business to listen to his patients. And then when he in turn developed cancer, he is so impressed with the medical personnel who show him kindness and empathy. 

He stresses the importance of hospitals being built in places which can accommodate gardens and pleasant surroundings for patients. I have seen this in my own work as a hospital chaplain. He wants the very best for his patients, the best technology but always dressed in kindness and empathy.

Reading through tomorrow’s liturgy I was frequently  reminded of Henry Marsh. In the entrance antiphon we ask the Lord to hear our voice and not to abandon or forsake us (Psalm 27). And then in the Gospel (Matthew 9: 36 - 10:8) “When Jesus sees the crowds, he feels sorry for them because they were harassed and dejected…” In the second reading (Romans 5: 6 - 11) St Paul talks about the helplessness of people. As I read those words, I could see Henry Marsh engaging with extremely sick people and speaking to them in such a manner giving  them solace, comforting them.

 

In a  postscript to And Finally, Marsh writes about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, a country he considers his second home. 

He phones his friends in Lviv and Kyiv every day. Of course he is worried about them and what the future holds for them. But he knows: “they will fight to the death. I always knew they would. They see no alternative.” Let us hope that it does not come to that. 

He insists that we have to be optimistic because if we are not, “then evil will certainly triumph.” The last line of the book is: “I will return.” Marsh does not believe in an afterlife but certainly believes in living this life to the full and helping make it a better place for all of us.

Tomorrow’s Gospel is one of hope, couched in empathy, especially for those who are harassed and dejected. The day we give up on the marginalised, the day we turn our backs on the poor and sick is the day we lose  our humanity. And the story of the life of Jesus is all about offering hope, a hope, that we as Christians believe, reaches fulfilment, in some extraordinary way, with God.