A Singularly Intimate Moment
When I published my first book—“Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevueâ€â€”I got a lot of ribbing from my friends about the title. “Singular Intimacies?†they said. “What’s the book about—French lingerie?†More
The End of Private Practice?
A recent article in the New York Times noted a steady migration of doctors from private practice to hospital-owned health systems. The main driving force appears to be economic, that it is too difficult to run a business, especially when much of that entails fighting multiple insurance companies for reimbursement. Some of the older physicians … More
Bellevue Makes Literary History!
The Bellevue Literary Press is honored with the Pulitzer Prize. Paul Harding’s debut novel–Tinkers–won the 2010 Pulitzer Prize in fiction. The Bellevue Literary Press was founded in 2005 as a sister organization to the Bellevue Literary Review. The BLPress publishes literary and authoritative fiction and nonfiction at the nexus of the arts and the sciences, … More
Memoir of Lost Love
Kay Redfield Jamison writes movingly of her love for her husband, and chronicles the illnesses that he faced in clear-eyed, heartfelt prose. Danielle Ofri reviews her book for The Lancet. More
Dance and Medicine
It was on a desolate winter evening that I escaped from Bellevue. I plunged the last IV of my day into someone’s vein and then hopped on an M-15 bus uptown, pressing my subway token into the slot with both anxiety and relief. I was in the second year of my internal medicine residency training, the middle year, which is marked by what is charitably called a “dip†in motivation. More accurately, it is a pit, a chasm, an abyss, a Stygian marsh. More
Writing “Medicine in Translation”
by Danielle Ofri Huffington Post The first book I wrote custom essays uk about medicine, “Singular Intimacies,” did not start out as a book. It started out as a breather–an exhalation, you might say–after a decade of medical training at Bellevue Hospital. After ten years of exams, hospitals, illness and death, I needed some air. … More
Writing About Patients: Is it Ethical?
There is a veritable epidemic of doctor-writers out there. What about confidentiality? Professionalism? HIPAA? More
New York Times review of “Medicine in Translation”
by Sam Roberts New York Times “When my immigrant grandmother contracted a contagious disease on her voyage to America from Eastern Europe, she was deposited in a London hospital, alone and unable to speak a word of English. Her story has evoked terror every time I have heard it. Imagine being afraid of medical treatment, … More
Book Launch for “Medicine in Translation”
It was a frigid January night, but happily that didn’t stop booklovers from coming out to Barnes & Noble on the Upper West Side. Seventy fans and friends packed the seats to hear Danielle Ofri read from her new book, “Medicine in Translation.” She read aloud about her experience caring for a Tibetan hunger striker … More
People, Panic, and Pandemics
The fact that a half-a-million people die each year from filariasis, Guinea worm, and onchocerciasis elicits little more than a yawn. But diseases like Ebola and swine flu had us riveted: horrific pathogens from the primordial African or Asian muck could migrate to infect the innocent Western world. Sounds like a thriller movie. Which it was. Outbreak, in 1995, grossed more money than the budget for most health departments. More
Humanizing Medicine: The Small Details
by Danielle Ofri Huffington Post “Angelina Gomez,†the medical assistant hollers out to the crowded waiting room. As always, I cringe when I hear this. It sounds so harsh, so cattle-like. I know that the assistant is actually a gentle and caring person, and I understand that he uses a loud voice so that he … More
Let Me Down Easy–Anna Deveare Smith
Every illness is unique, and every person faces illness in his or her own way. Anna Deveare Smith, in her one-woman show “Let Me Down Easy,†slips into the persona of twenty-one individuals who have faced an aspect of illness or death. In ninety minutes, Deveare Smith takes the audience on an existential scavenger hunt, … More
An Outbreak of Poetry (and Prose) at Bellevue
The waiting area in Bellevue Hospital was full. Every chair was taken. But the people kept streaming in. More chairs had to be brought in. It wasn’t clear if the room could accommodate everyone. This wasn’t the emergency room or the clinic waiting area, however. It was the scene of the Bellevue Literary Review poetry … More
Contagious–Book Review
In search of gripping plots and compelling characters, writers have always pilfered from reality. Plagues and epidemics—with their threats of mass destruction, overtones of divine retribution, nefarious villains and innocent victims—have particularly enthralled novelists. More
Cold Souls–Movie Review
“How does the medical profession treat the patient with pains of the soul? Traditionally, we offer psychotherapy, selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, sometimes a condescending pat on the shoulder. But what if we could extirpate the root-cause pathology? Just as we resect a melanoma, drain an abscess, excise an inflamed gallbladder, why couldn’t the medical profession simply extract the angst-ridden soul?…” More
