Being There: Medical Student Morgue Volunteers Following 9-11 [Paperback]

Barry M. Goldstein (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1, 2006

Being There is a collection of photographic portraits of, and interviews with, NYU medical students who volunteered in the New York City Medical Examiner's morgue following 9/11, conducted by Barry Goldstein, and with a foreword by Charles Hirsch, M.D., the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York, who ran the massive effort to identify remains. Within 24 hours of the attacks, a complex of tents and refrigerated trucks appeared on 30th St. and 1st Ave, adjacent to the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner (OCME). This makeshift compound housed the temporary morgues that would receive human remains recovered from Ground Zero. Approximately twenty NYU medical students volunteered to work alongside the understaffed OCME, sorting, cataloguing, and identifying human remains. Most of these students had been in medical school for only a few weeks. In June of 2002, Dr. Goldstein photographed and interviewed the volunteers, asking them to describe what they did, what they would remember, how they coped, and how they were changed by the experience. Barry M. Goldstein is associate professor of biochemistry and biophysics, associate professor of medical humanities at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and adjunct professor of humanism in medicine at NYU School of Medicine. He was Artist-in-Residence at the NYU School of Medicine during the 2001-2002 academic year.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Dr. Goldstein's book gives us a fascinating glimpse into what it meant to be a medical student participant in the forensic investigation of the World Trade Center disaster, the largest mass murder in the history of the United States. --Charles S. Hirsch, M.D., Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York

Product Details

• Paperback: 87 pages
• Publisher: University of Rochester Press; 1 edition (June 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0976879204
• ISBN-13: 978-0976879206
• Product Dimensions: 10.5 x 9.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,845,915 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Barry Goldstein is a photographer specializing in portraiture and documentary themes. Originally trained as a physician and biophysicist, he is Associate Professor of Medical Humanities at the University of Rochester Medical Center, and Visiting Professor of Humanities at Williams College. He was serving as the first Artist-in-Residence at the New York University Medical School on September 11, 2001, an experience that led to his collection "Being There: Medical Student Morgue Volunteers Following 9/11." (NYU Master Scholars Press, 2005.) His current project, "Gray Land. Soldiers on War" (W.W. Norton & Co., 2009), documents the faces and experiences of members of an Army brigade over two deployments to Iraq. He has also worked in New York City during the 2004 Republican Convention, and in New Orleans following Katrina. The intent of these projects is to examine different aspects of post-9/11 America, using both images and the subject's own words. Barry lives in North Adams, Massachusetts, and is married to novelist Andrea Barrett. His work can be seen at www.bgoldstein.net