Search results for: music
Unfinished Symphony
The baton came down and everyone was off. I tried to catch a few notes but was immediately flailing and thoroughly lost. It went downhill from there, for a solid hour, an experience that could comfortably be compared to extended root canal, although dentists generally provide anesthesia. More
The Beauty of Medical Language
The clinical language is so dry that it sticks in my throat like the grits they used to serve in our hospital cafeteria. It handily abides by our hospital’s infection control guidelines; the writing is so sterile that nary a staphylococcus could hope to achieve mitosis in its midst. It is as though the practitioners of the scientific literature of medicine reached a covert agreement to ban even the slightest of hint of creativity, the slimmest suggestion of beauty. Of course, it was not always that way… More
Reading the Body: Poetry, Dance & Disability
“Reading the Body,” explores disability through dance and poetry. Four acclaimed dancers create original choreography based on BLR poetry, More
Covid Duets
Given the death and destruction all around us during the Covid pandemic, it felt unseemly to complain about coming home to a strange cello every night. But playing someone else’s cello is like sleeping on someone else’s mattress: everything feels wrong. More
Danielle Ofri in conversation with Oliver Sacks–Video
Danielle Ofri in conversation Oliver Sacks. Hear the full conversation, ranging from the ethics of using patients’ stories, to the ins and outs of hallucinations, to the relative merits of Bach versus Beethoven. More
The Yemenite Giant and the Death of Stalin
I only knew my father, Zacharia Ofri, as an unassuming high-school math teacher. As a young man, though, he was basketball star in his native Israel. But the 1950s was a turbulent time. His story weaves in Cold War intrigue, Russian Embassy bombs, the death of Stalin, Ben Gurion’s hairdo, Iron Curtain railroad trips, Nasser’s miscalculations, the 1952 Helsinki Olympics, and of course a New York City cab driver. (Plus lots of great photos!) More
Gaudeamus Igitur by John Stone
“Gaudeamus Igitur” is one of my favorite poems of all times. John Stone was a poet and cardiologist at Emory University, He wrote this poem (the title means “Therefore, Let us Rejoice” for a graduating class at Emory Medical School. More
Mothers in Medicine
We in medicine are inculcated in the culture of deferred enjoyment, of sacrificing our lives now for some distant rose-colored, board-certified future. But here’s the breaking news: No chapter with unlimited time and resources is ever going to magically open up in our lives. No fairy godmother will miraculously graft 8 hours onto your day or stock your house with groceries or impress the 16 kinds of vasculitis into your cingulate gyrus. More
Medical Humanities: The Rx for Uncertainty?
A large part of our medical maturation is facing uncertainty and then accepting it into our fold. This is far harder than memorizing all those rare diseases. The humanities can offer doctors a paradigm for living with ambiguity and even for relishing it. More
One Last Visit to See My Patient
My 91-year-old patient and I had been together for some 20 years — honestly I’d lost count — so visiting her at home, even in the torrential rain, was the least I could do. More
Should Doctors Care About Happiness?
We in the health care professions need to notice and inquire about happiness the same way we do other aspects of our patients’ lives. More
Fear of Dying Alone
What if a patient dies and nobody is there to mourn? Is it like a tree falling soundlessly in the forest? More
Should Med Schools Be Renamed for Donors?
24 of the country’s 141 medical schools sport a donor’s name rather than the plain old university name. The pace is increasing, as are the number of eyebrows being raised. More
Incidental Illness
How, in the quiet world of outpatient medicine, does one know when a life is saved? More
NYU Stories review of “What Doctors Feel”
A rare glimpse into the effects of shuttling from patient to patient without being allowed to process the powerful feelings—fear, anger, grief—that naturally arise when lives are at stake. More
