Dr. Chan and Mrs. Geng (not their real names) eased out of their chairs in the waiting room using their matching wooden canes, the kind distributed by the hospital free of charge. At 89, Dr. Chan was stooped and frail, his body paper-thin. He seemed as though he might topple...

"What happens when the poet faces illness? How is the poetry affected by alterations of the body and mind?"

Read Danielle's new article in the Journal of Medical Humanities. 

Here's the beginning:
"When I think about the definition of poetry, I...

Can Americans ever speak reasonably to each other about abortion? It seems impossible, given how polarized our country is. The emotions run far too deep on both sides. No one seems to be able to listen to anything anyone else says, even something reasonable. The assumption is that anyone on...

"Precisely two weeks after completing my medical internship, I proceeded to nearly kill a patient...."--Danielle Ofri, MD

It's been more than a decade since the seminal report "To Err is Human" by the Institute of Medicine.  The report made waves when it estimated that 1.5 million people are affected...

Stereotypes are being chased away in medicine--at least on paper. It's no longer permissible to discriminate against women (and since women are likely taking over medicine, that's a good thing!). The topic of race is verboten, as is religion. Cultural competency is everywhere in medicine, working to break down stereotypes...

The issue of immigration is more polarizing than ever. When it comes to health care, the emotions flare even higher. I've written a lot about my immigrant patients and medical issues. Online comments to these articles have tended to be extremely vitriolic, especially when I've written about...

How many hours can a doctor work?

The residency regulators are back. About ten years ago, the national organization that accredits residency programs (ACGME) set out its first guidelines about how many hours a doctor-in-training can work. Interns and residents finally achieved the vaunted 80-hour workweek. (New...

A good chunk of every medical visit is spent writing prescriptions. Before we had an electronic medical record, this was often an arduous task, leading to serious writer's cramp. Now the computer makes it easier on the doctor, but it doesn't seem to have much...

The fine print of the 2010 Health Care Reform bill is still being analyzed. Shortcomings and limitations are being uncovered. But a new report from the Commonwealth Fund showed that there will be immense and immediate gains for young adults.

Most young adults "fall...

Good health is only affordable--for the majority of the population--if it is covered by insurance. An excellent case in point is the vaccine for shingles (herpes zoster).

Shingles is the revisiting of the chicken pox virus. The virus lives in the body since the first episode of shingles as a...

Every year the U.S. New & World Report publishes its rankings of the nation's top 50 hospitals. Hospital administrators await this top 50 report with a tension and fervor that rivals the NFL first-draft pick.

As soon as the report is released, snippets rocket their...

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.  I suspect that that...

Locking the entrance to the emergency room: there could not have been a more potent image to the final day of St. Vincent's Hospital in New York City.

After 160 years, St. Vincent's closed because of financial problems. It was the only hospital serving Greenwich...

Public hospitals have a bad rap. They're viewed by many as hospitals of last resort, and most patients with private insurance do anything to avoid them.

As a long-time physician in a public hospital, I'm sensitive to this reputation. I wouldn't work in my hospital if I didn't feel that...

In a move that would fit right in with the Soviet Union's policing style, Governor Jan Brewer signed bill SB-1070 into law, making it a state crime to walk the streets of Arizona without papers proving one's immigration status.

A person could be detained by...

When I published my first book--"Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue"--I got a lot of ribbing from my friends about the title.

"Singular Intimacies?" they said. "What's the book about--French lingerie?"

But I wanted a title that would capture the essence of the doctor-patient relationship. It is intimate,...

Counting calories as part of health care reform--who knew? But apparently it's there on page 455 of the health care reform act, according to Marion Nestle, Professor of Nutrition at NYU, writing in the New England Journal of Medicine. There will now be a...

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...

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 -- it is too difficult to run a business, especially when much of that entails fighting multiple insurance companies...

As a primary care internist, I spend a lot of time focusing on preventive health. There are all sorts of screening tests--mammograms, colonoscopies, PSA tests--but none of these actually "prevent" disease. They are designed to find disease at an early stage, allowing treatment that, ideally, avoids the more aggressive forms...