A look at the emotional side of medicine--the shame, fear, anger, anxiety, empathy, and even love that affect patient care
Physicians are assumed to be objective, rational beings, easily able to detach as they guide patients and families through some of life's most challenging moments. But doctors' emotional responses to the life-and-death dramas of everyday practice have a profound impact on medical care. And while much has been written about the minds and methods of the medical professionals who save our lives, precious little has been said about their emotions. In "What Doctors Feel," Dr. Danielle Ofri has taken on the task of dissecting the hidden emotional responses of doctors, and how these directly influence patients.
How do the stresses of medical life--from paperwork to grueling hours to lawsuits to facing death--affect the medical care that doctors can offer their patients? Digging deep into the lives of doctors, Ofri examines the daunting range of emotions--shame, anger, empathy, frustration, hope, pride, occasionally despair, and sometimes even love--that permeate the contemporary doctor-patient connection. Drawing on scientific studies, including some surprising research, Dr. Danielle Ofri offers up an unflinching look at the impact of emotions on health care.
With her renowned eye for dramatic detail, Dr. Ofri takes us into the swirling heart of patient care, telling stories of caregivers caught up and occasionally torn down by the whirlwind life of doctoring. She admits to the humiliation of an error that nearly killed one of her patients and her forever fear of making another. She mourns when a beloved patient is denied a heart transplant. She tells the riveting stories of an intern traumatized when she is forced to let a newborn die in her arms, and of a doctor whose daily glass of wine to handle the frustrations of the ER escalates into a destructive addiction. But doctors don't only feel fear, grief, and frustration. Ofri also reveals that doctors tell bad jokes about "toxic sock syndrome," cope through gallows humor, find hope in impossible situations, and surrender to ecstatic happiness when they triumph over illness. The stories here reveal the undeniable truth that emotions have a distinct effect on how doctors care for their patients. For both clinicians and patients, understanding what doctors feel can make all the difference in giving and getting the best medical care.

"From the Hardcover edition."

The minute Danielle Ofri entered the doors of Bellevue Hospital, the tentative medical student was plunged into the overcrowded world of urban medicine. Singular Intimacies lays bare the harrowing years of medical school and internship, offering the insider's view of becoming a doctor.

In Singular Intimacies, which the New England Journal of Medicine said captured the "essence of becoming and being a doctor," Danielle Ofri led us into the hectic, constantly challenging world of big-city medicine. In Incidental Findings, she's finished her training and is learning through practice to become a more rounded healer.
"Ofri's thoughtful and honest second book--the title is inspired by her realization, during her own amniocentesis, that conditions that seem minor to doctors are monumental when they happen to you--is equal parts The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Kitchen Confidential."
--Nicholas Confessore, New York Times Book Review
"Dr. Ofri, a physician, distills wisdom from the maelstrom of New York City's Bellevue Hospital in this emotional memoir. In a series of poignant vignettes, the internist grapples with the hearts of the sick, literally and metaphorically. Her patients range from the terminally ill to manipulative hypochondriacs, from veiled Bangladeshi women to convicted felons. A must-read for students of psychology and medicine in need of a lesson in compassion."
--Psychology Today
"Danielle Ofri is a finely gifted writer, a born storyteller as well as a born physician."
--Oliver Sacks
Dr. Danielle Ofri, author of Singular Intimacies (Beacon / 7252-4 / $24.00 hc), is an attending physician at Bellevue and the cofounder and editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. She is currently a regular contributor to the Los Angeles Times and the New England Journal of Medicine.