Posts

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

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

A Tense Moment in the ER

The hospital, by definition, is a stressful place for patients and families unsettled by the vulnerabilities of the human body. Add in issues of race, class, gender, power dynamics, economics, and long wait times, and you have the ingredients for combustion just hankering for tinder. More

A True Role Model: Dr. Lisa Schwartz

Lisa was my very first resident. She taught us medical students how to aspirate ascites fluid from the abdomen of a cirrhotic patient, how to diagnose granulomatosis with polyangiitis, how to wrangle a CT scan from an obdurate radiologist, how to handle a hallucinating patient who spoke only Igbo, and where to get a cheese Danish once the coffee shop closed. More

Prescribing Democracy

“There cannot be any doubt,” Dr. Rudolf Virchow wrote in 1848, that the recent typhus epidemic was a result of “poverty and underdevelopment.” His prescription was “free and unlimited democracy.” Hmm–a prescription for democracy. Not something you get at your average doctor’s visit. But maybe that’s what we need. More

Viva Italiano!

“Cosa dice el malato, Cosa sente il medico.” We are thrilled to see “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear” in Italian. If luck somehow allows you to be in Rome on January 18 instead of your office, please join us at the Trevi Fountain Convention Center. More

2017 World Science Festival

Join Danielle for a free event at the 2017 World Science Festival in NYC. Danielle will be in conversation with journalist Susannah Meadows as part of the Science and Story Cafe. Book signing to follow. More

Bellevue Auxiliary

The Bellevue Auxiliary is a century-old humanitarian organization that provides “whatever it takes” to improve the experience of patients. From childcare services to research funds to transportation to smoking cessation programs to outdoor garden to the World Trade Center clinic, the Bellevue Auxiliary has been there to help. Danielle Ofri will be speaking at the … More

Washington Post Review of “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear.”

“If you’ve switched physicians in search of someone more caring, or left an exam feeling unseen and unheard, you will find much to appreciate in Danielle Ofri’s perceptive book. ” More

A Bellevue Doctor on Trump, Exam Room Conversations and Her New Book

Ofri draws on anecdotes and evidence in her new book, “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear,” to argue that, even as technology advances, conversation between patients and doctors remains the “most potent diagnostic—and therapeutic—tool in medicine.” More

Are We Missing the Most Important Aspect of Health Care?

As the medical industry strives for a virtual world in which diagnoses are made and prescriptions rendered on a smartphone app, Ofri argues that successful conversation is the primary driver of healing. Sadly dialectics remain a longstanding elephant in the office: doctors enter with opinions, patients their own, the ticking clock on the wall in plain view of both parties. More

Should Doctors Treat Trump Anxiety?

Doctors deal with side effects all the time—side effects of medications, side effects of diseases, side effects of treatments. But side effects of an election is new territory for us. We can report medication side effects to the FDA, but to whom do we report election side effects? More