Articles & Media
Coronavirus and Fear
Fear is a primal emotion, and to pretend that the medical staff are any less susceptible than the general public is folly. I sometimes feel as though we need to negotiate an armistice of sorts with our fears. There is a certain amount of salutary fear we need to accept, the kind that keeps us respectful of the high stakes in caring for patients. But we also have to recognize that there are irrational fears, the kinds that are not necessarily allayed by data. More
Visiting—and Revisiting—Anne Frank
I had read the diary in junior high school and didn’t remember much beyond the vague outlines. But reading it aloud now, with the more dramatic voicing and pace required to keep a restless kid’s attention, I found the book absolutely mesmerizing. It was impossible to put down. More
Flying Solo
A passed-out photographer, a hellish round of flight delays, a Fisher-Price stethoscope–what a series of out-of-hospital emergencies taught me about medicine as a team sport. More
“What Doctors Feel” in Korean
안녕하세요 “What Doctors Feel” is now available in Korean! The perfect complement to your bibimbap-and-kimchi lunch. 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
The Covenant
Burnout among doctors appears to be at epidemic proportions these days, with concomitant gushing prescriptions for wellness and resilience. But in reality, most doctors are not burned out: most love taking care of patients and want nothing more than to be able to do just that. The source of the agony is the profession—or rather the corporatization of the profession… More
EMR Ménage-à-Trois
EMRs have both breathtaking assets and snarling annoyances. But what started out as a tool — a database to store information more efficiently than the paper chart — has inserted itself as a member of the medical team. What used to be a tango between the doctor and patient is now a troika. More
Empathy in the Age of the EMR
We doctors have been reduced to tools of mere data entry. A higher being might peek into our exam room and be unable to distinguish the doctor from the sphygmomanometer. There is at least one upside to this mess, however. The aggressiveness of the EMR’s incursion into the doctor-patient relationship has forced us to declare our loyalties: are we taking care of patients or are we taking care of the EMR? More
The Daily Exploitation of Medical Staff
Corporate medicine has milked just about all the “efficiency” it can out of the system. With mergers and streamlining, it has pushed the productivity numbers about as far as they can go. But one resource that seems endless — and free — is the professional ethic of medical staff members. More
Medicine and the Machine podcast
A free-wheeling conversation with Eric Topol, Abraham Verghese and Danielle Ofri on everything from artificial intelligence to literary magazines to “falling in love” with your patients. Listen to the inaugural episode of Medscape’s new “Medicine and the Machine” podcast. 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
Postcall Podcast
Danielle Ofri joins the Postcall Podcast team to discuss challenges in practicing medicine today, where writing fits into everything, and the Bellevue Literary Review. More
Hart Island Podcast
Danielle Ofri talks with Michael T. Keene about New York City, Bellevue Hospital, the medical world, and the some of the history that connects to Hart Island, NYC’s potter’s field since 1869. More
Doctor-Writers: What Are the Ethics?
There is a veritable epidemic of doctor-writers out there. What is going on? Are doctors suddenly in the kiss-and-tell mode? What about confidentiality? Professionalism? HIPAA? As one of the aforementioned doctor-writers, I look upon this trend with both awe and trepidation. More
Perchance to Think
In the pressurized world of contemporary outpatient medicine, there is simply no time to think. With every patient, we doctors race to cover the bare minimum, sprinting in subsistence-level intellectual mode because that’s all that’s sustainable. More
