By Sean McCourt
In the medical world, there are serious risks associated with any kind of surgery. If a mistake is made during a procedure on a leg or arm, there might be some loss of movement or ease of mobility, but the patient can still generally go about their lives, perhaps with a slight physical handicap. If something goes wrong during a brain surgery, however, a person can lose their memory, their control of motor skills, even the ability to think. This is the challenge that faces British neurosurgeon Dr. Henry Marsh every time he operates on somebody, and is one of the personal revelations about his work that he shares in the film The English Surgeon, which has its San Francisco theatrical premiere at the Red Vic from May 17-20.
Director Geoffrey Smith tells the story of how Marsh has been traveling to the former Soviet republic of Ukraine since 1992, volunteering on his own time to help in a region of the world that has a medical system that lags many decades behind those in the industrialized west — and where many cases of brain tumors and other illnesses go undiagnosed or misdiagnosed for so long that what would have been easily taken care of with a routine operation or procedure at Marsh’s hospital in London have now progressed to the point that there is little doctors can do to save the patient’s life.