The Insulin Wars
Insurance companies and drug manufacturers have come upon an ingenious business plan: They could farm out their dirty work to the doctors and the patients. When there’s an E. coli outbreak that causes...
View ArticleA 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...
View ArticlePerchance 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...
View ArticleDoctor-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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleMedicine 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...
View ArticlePostcall 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 The post Postcall Podcast...
View ArticleEmpathy 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...
View ArticleHart 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 The...
View ArticleGaudeamus 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...
View ArticleEMR 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...
View ArticleThe 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...
View ArticleThe Yemenite Giant and the Death of Stalin
My father, Zacharia Ofri, the 20-year-old son of an immigrant floor layer from Yemen and captain of the Israeli national basketball team, marched with the modest-size delegation into the Olympic...
View Article“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 post “What Doctors Feel” in Korean appeared first on Danielle Ofri.
View ArticleFlying 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 The post Flying Solo...
View ArticleVisiting—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...
View ArticleCoronavirus 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...
View ArticleThe Impressive Profits of Nonprofit Hospitals
Seven of the ten most profitable hospitals in America are nonprofit hospitals. Is this an oxymoron? More The post The Impressive Profits of Nonprofit Hospitals appeared first on Danielle Ofri.
View ArticleCoronavirus: Why Doctors and Nurses Are Anxious and Angry
The story of the coronavirus is still being written. The stories of polio, Ebola, H.I.V. and measles — all, alas, still in progress — remind us that public health is an ongoing,...
View ArticleBook Launch: “When We Do Harm”
Although Covid19 kept us from meeting up amidst the Strand’s 18 incredible miles of books, Strand Bookstore graciously opened its virtual doors for our book launch. You can see it here. More The post...
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