The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review [Paperback]

Danielle Ofri (Editor), Sherwin B. Nuland (Foreword)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 2008

“A kaleidoscope of creativity . . . unsentimental and sometimes unpredictable.”—Journal of the American Medical Association

Founded just six years ago, Bellevue Literary Review is already widely recognized as a rare forum for emerging and celebrated writers—among them Julia Alvarez, Raphael Campo, Rick Moody, and Abraham Verghese—on issues of health and healing. Gathered here are poignant and prizewinning stories, essays, and poems, the voices of patients and those who care for them, which form the journal’s remarkable dialogue on “humanity and the human experience.”

Danielle Ofri, MD, author of Incidental Findings and Singular Intimacies, is the editor in chief of Bellevue Literary Review. She lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD, DLitt (Hon), is an attending physician in the medical clinic at Bellevue Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine. She divides her time between seeing patients, teaching medical students and residents, editing and writing. Dr. Ofri is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the Bellevue Literary Review. Sherwin B. Nuland is Clinical Professor of Surgery at the Yale University School of Medicine and a Fellow at Yale's Institute for Social and Policy Studies. He is the author of a number of books, among them HOW WE LIVE, and HOW WE DIE, which won the National Book Award for Nonfiction.

Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Bellevue Literary Press; 1 edition (February 1, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1934137049
• ISBN-13: 978-1934137048
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #74,763 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

When I started medical school, I had no idea that I would become a writer. I'd completed a PhD in the biochemistry of endorphin receptors, and planned to become a bench scientist with a once-a-week clinic to see patients.

But during residency, I fell in love with patient-care, and realized that I'd have to put bench research aside. After three years of training, I took off some time to travel. I spent 18 months on the road, working occasional medical temp-jobs to earn money, and then exploring Latin America for as long as my money would last.

It was during these travels, during this first true break from medicine, that I started writing down the stories of my medical training at Bellevue Hospital. I had no intentions about a book, or publishing at all, but I just needed to unload some of the stories that had built up over the years.

When I came back to medical practice, writing kept itself going in my life. Then I helped found the Bellevue Literary Review, which was another way to incorporate literature into medicine. Now, my time is split between clinical medicine, teaching, writing, editing, my newest hobby--cello, (and of course my three wonderful children!).


Official Bio

Danielle Ofri's newest book is Medicine in Translation: Journeys with my Patients (Beacon, 2010), which examines the challenges that immigrants face in the American health-care system, as well as her own experience as a patient in a foreign country.

She is the author of two collections of essays about life in medicine: Incidental Findings: Lessons from my Patients in the Art of Medicine and Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. Most recently, she and the editors of the BLR published the anthology, The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review.

Danielle Ofri's writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the New England Journal of Medicine, the Lancet, and on National Public Radio. She is the recipient of the Missouri Review Editor's Prize for her essay Merced, which was selected by Stephen Jay Gould for Best American Essays 2002. Her essay Common Ground was selected by Oliver Sacks for Best American Science Writing 2003. A third essay, Living Will, was selected by Susan Orlean for Best American Essays 2005. She is the recipient of the 2005 John P. McGovern Award, given annually by the American Medical Writers Association for "preeminent contributions to medical communication." Danielle Ofri was Associate Chief Editor of The Bellevue Guide to Outpatient Medicine, which was awarded Best Medical Textbook of 2001 by the American Medical Writers Association.

Danielle Ofri is currently working on a set of essays about medicine, while several unfinished novels in various states of disrepair gather prime New-York-City dust under her bed. Ofri lives with her husband, three children, cello, and black-lab mutt in a singularly intimate Manhattan-sized apartment

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Profoundly Moving, April 20, 2008

By 

litaddiction (Chicago) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review (Paperback)

A 2008 anthology of ~90 short stories, essays, and poems drawn from the NYU School of Medicine's semi-annual literary journal.

Each entry deals in some way with illness or coping, although sometimes minimally and often peripherally. There are doctors and hospitals, but most of the pieces are about people in ordinary community. Combined, they threaten toward darkness. Yet in the midst there's a hilarious, satirical fantasy, and poems that leave me with a "Wow!"

All of the writing is first-rate -- after nearly every entry, I found myself flipping to the contributor bios in the back to learn more about the writer. Highly recommended.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Brilliant, tragic, familiar, yet soothing, July 21, 2008

By 

Kirie Pedersen (Washington State & Manhattan) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review (Paperback)

I would give a copy of this to everyone I know, and place it in every medical waiting room or attorney's office serving those with disability or injury. Articles and books by physicians, patients, and the family members and friends who care for injured or ill family members and friends appear everywhere. Best of the Bellevue Literary Review includes personal essays, poetry, and fiction by known and emerging authors and poets. Bellevue Literary Review, the magazine, is published by Bellevue Literary Press out of the New York University School of Medicine. I teach world literature, and also read literary and other magazines as fast as they are published. I have also cared for ill family members and others for most of my life. I rate Best of the Bellevue Literary Review at the top of the list both in the quality of the literature, and in the message conveyed.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Invaluable teaching tool, October 22, 2009

By 

Katherine A. Taylor - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review (Paperback)

For those who teach in medical humanities, this is an invaluable collection. The writings cover a wide range of topics, and the teaching guide is quite useful. And for those who don't teach, it' is a great read!

Katherine Taylor
Center for Bioethics, University of Pennsylvania