August 2010

The Patient’s Voice

Not long ago I learned that these side effects listed on the package insert are not the ones the patient actually complains of. No, they are the symptoms the patients’ doctors choose to report, the doctors’ impressions of what the patients are describing. More

Endorphins and Overeating

As a primary care internist, my practice spans the common adult ailments—diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, coronary artery disease, arthritis. It is hard not to avoid the difficult truth that obesity, while perhaps not causing all of these illness, certainly exacerbates them greatly. More

Can We Measure a “Good Doctor?”

What do quality measures actually measure? Can they tell us who is a good doctor, or what makes a good doctor? “Quality measures” offer patients a seductively scientific metric of doctors’ performance — but can easily lead them astray. More

Owning Up to Medical Error

Precisely two weeks after completing my medical internship,I proceeded to nearly kill a patient. July marked the startof my second year of residency at New York City’s BellevueHospital, and it was my first time being fully in charge of a patient. More

Books by Danielle Ofri

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