Published Articles
The Patient’s Voice
What does your doctor hear when you talk? by Danielle Ofri published on CNN.com August 23, 2010 Whenever a patient asks me about the side effects of a particular medication, I point to the very long roster of symptoms listed for the drug. “It’s anything any patient has ever experienced,” I say, then try to... »
Owning Up to Medical Error
Ashamed To Admit It: Owning Up To Medical Error By DANIELLE OFRI, M.D. Published: Aug 3, 2010 Health Affairs journal (also in Washington Post). Precisely two weeks after completing my medical internship, I proceeded to nearly kill a patient. July marked the start of my second year of residency at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital, and it was... »
The Role of Touch
Not on the Doctor’s Checklist, but Touch Matters By DANIELLE OFRI, M.D. Published: Aug 3, 2010 New York Times. A new patient comes to my office, a healthy middle-aged woman. The medical assistant has already documented her normal blood pressure. Of our allotted 15 minutes, I spend more than two-thirds talking with her. I ask about her personal medical... »
Unemployment and Health
When Unemployed Means Unhealthy Too. By DANIELLE OFRI, M.D. Published: July 29, 2010 New York Times “I used to have a doctor,” she said, matter-of-factly, “but when I got laid off six months ago I lost my insurance.” Ms. C. shifted in her chair while I took notes during our first medical visit. “So I... »
Facing Our Prejudices
Danielle’s new essay on doctors facing our own prejudices with obese patients, on a new website called “The Responsibility Project.” “I had to be honest—I was uncomfortable with my new patient, a woman in her late thirties, in my office for a general medical check-up. Ms. M. was petite in stature,... »
The Pastor’s Son
Read the first chapter of “Medicine in Translation” in the medical humanities journal Hektoen International. “There was a sharp rap at the apartment door. When Samuel Chuks Nwanko opened it, he saw a young man standing in the hallway wearing a stained denim jacket over a University of Nigeria T-shirt. The whites of... »
A Patient, a Death, but No One to Grieve
By DANIELLE OFRI, M.D. Published: May 17, 2010 New York Times “My patient’s body was unclaimed, and it had already been sent for burial by the time I learned of his death on a Thursday afternoon. It had happened on Saturday, at another hospital. He hadn’t left any next-of-kin contact, and it had taken... »
Scenes From the Lives They Lived in the City
Published: June 29, 2003 New York Times excerpt from SINGULAR INTIMACIES: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue By Danielle Ofri (Beacon Press) ”Nine P.M.,” somebody shouted. ”Rikers bus rollin’ in!” I stepped out of the Bellevue E.R. into the chilly spring night to see what the excitement was. Just pulling in was a school bus, the kind I’d... »
Gifts of the Magi; For a young doctor far from home, an unexpected present from a homeless alcoholic.
By DANIELLE OFRI December 25, 2005 New York Times: Christmas Day FICTION “Bitter winds churned up First Avenue and tore through the pathetically thin scrubs that Bellevue doled out to its interns. The December sky glowered the same leaden-green color of the bile that Dr. Kamal Singh was siphoning from the gut of Mr.... »
At Bellevue, a hospital reflects a changing world
by Danielle Ofri Feb 15, 2010 Los Angeles Times “…Though city hospitals invoke images of charity patients from teeming, poverty-stricken slums, of substandard, last-resort medical care, the reality is quite different. Bellevue Hospital is synonymous in many people’s minds with “urban medicine” — something that is not quite its own specialty yet but... »