Doctors need to be aware of their own biases towards patients
Modifying our external behavior and how we communicate is clearly important, but I believe we in the medical profession have a duty to work to change our inner landscapes as well. It’s a tall order, I realize, but if we wish to claim the high mantle of professionalism, we need to at least be actively attempting to challenge our gut feelings. More
Globe & Mail review of “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear”
Ofri argues in her new book “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear” that the conversations doctors have with their patients are the most important part of a medical visit, far surpassing blood tests, X-rays or various scans. And she believes it’s time both doctors and patients give these conversations their due. 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
The Conversation Placebo
Pain remedies developed by the pharmaceutical industry are only modestly effective, and they have side effects that range from nausea and constipation to addiction and death. What’s often overlooked is that the simple conversation between doctor and patient can be as potent an analgesic as many treatments we prescribe. More
Podcast: Listen to the Patient!
Danielle is interviewed by Joe Elia from the New England Journal of Medicine about her new book, “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear.” More
Booklist review of “What Patients Say, What Doctors Hear”
It may sound old-fashioned, but when it comes to encounters between doctors and patients, talk (the medical interview) and touch (the physical exam) trump technology. More
“Literature about medicine may be all that can save us”
“Language, that most human invention,†wrote Oliver Sacks, “can enable what, in principle, should not be possible. It can allow all of us, even the congenitally blind, to see with another person’s eyes.†In the last decade or two, a new generation of doctor writers – including Atul Gawande, Abraham Verghese, Henry Marsh,Danielle Ofri, Siddhartha Mukherjee, Paul Kalanithi and Gavin Francis – have undertaken the mission of seeing in this fashion. 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
Clinical Correlations review of “What Doctors Feel”
As the saxophone virtuoso Charlie Parker said, “If you don’t live it, it won’t come out of your horn.†More
Science-Based Medicine review of “What Doctors Feel”
A patient might reasonably say “I don’t give a damn how my doctor feels as long as she gets me better,†but emotions affect everything we do, influencing clinical decisions and patient outcomes. More
BBC Radio
Danielle Ofri is interviewed by BBC News about her book “What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine.” (Danielle is a secret BBC groupie, so was especially thrilled to be on this show) More
Can We Let Doctors Be Human?
Is our vision clouded because we are so immersed in the world of sickness? Is it because this helps reinforce the power dynamic that has kept patients “in their place” for centuries? Or might it be because, like our patients we doctors are scared down to our bones? If we were to see our patients living the lives that we live, then there would be nothing to separate them from us. And then we could easily become them. More
Lancet review of “What Doctors Feel”
What Doctors Feel: How Emotions Affect the Practice of Medicine is as close to a page-turner as a clinician’s story is likely to become. What Doctors Feel deserves to be well received and widely read. More
