Why Doctors Write with Danielle Ofri, MD
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What is the opening story and why does Danielle read a passage from Academic Medicine?
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You're listening to the Nocturneist Conversations. I'm Emily Silverman. Today's guest needs very little introduction. Her name is Danielle O'Free. She has an MD, a PhD, and is one of the foremost voices in the medical world today. She's a primary care internist at Bellevue Hospital, clinical professor of medicine at NYU, and founder and editor-in-chief of the Bellevue Literary Review. Her writing appears in The New Yorker, New York Times, The Lancet, the New England Journal of Medicine. She's given several TED Talks, she's performed at the Moth, and she's the author of six books. The latest of which is called When We Do Harm, a Doctor Confronts Medical. Yeah. In today's conversation, Danielle and I rewind the clock a bit.
She tells us about her humble beginnings as a locums tenants doctor, roving around the central US and Central America. She walks us through her journey, which took her very much off the beaten trail, which is admirable in my opinion, and as you can tell from her bio, led to an incredibly rich writing life. I was especially excited to hear Danielle talk about BLR, the Bellevue Literary Review, where anybody can submit their writing. We talked about what she's looking for in writing these days, how she mentors writers, and what she thinks about the future of physician storytelling. Before we chatted, I asked Danielle to read an excerpt from an essay she published in the journal Academic Medicine back in 2015.
It's called Storytelling in Medicine: The Passion and the Peril. Here's Danielle.
So much of medicine is about stories, the ones we hear, the ones we tell, the ones we participate in, that it's no accident that doctors and nurses are attracted to stories. The rising popularity of literary sections of medical journals is illustrative. These stories often have much more in common with what we actually do and how we actually live our lives as caregivers than does the latest randomized controlled trial, no matter how clinically relevant the data are. And the attraction and desire go beyond stories that tell of life in medicine. Great works of literature have an intrinsic appeal to medical professionals even when they are not about medicine. The sense of story and character is so much a part of our lives as caregivers.
Now, one could argue that any human being who lives and breathes would find resonance in story and character. And as a writer, I can't dispute this and I certainly wouldn't want to. But I would suggest that doctors and nurses spend much more of their lives immersed in story and narrative than the average working person does. For readers married to accountants, how many exciting stories does your spouse bring home at the end of the day? There just isn't as much drama in net asset dispersion or fixed cost derivatives. It is the stories in our work that provide meaning to much of our daily lives. and over the course of our careers we accumulate hundreds, thousands of stories stories of our patients, stories of our colleagues, stories of life in the hospital, stories we play a role in, myths and legends that circulate the wards as slyly and efficaciously as MRSA,
And after a while, these stories can sometimes weigh on us, feel like they are overflowing, and we are suddenly gripped by a desperate desire to tell someone, to share these stories. The recipient could be a spouse, a student, a coworker, or a hapless fellow traveler on the subway. The impulse to tell a story is innate in the human race, and we in medicine are particularly drawn to stories because these are what our patients bring to us. We hold our patients' stories, their words, their voices, their facial expressions, their fears, their needs, their trust. It's like cupping a butterfly in your palm, the physical tension of clenched fingers in a disconcerting balance against the requisite gentleness to protect the fragile creature.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the opening story and why does Danielle read a passage from Academic Medicine?
0:00–7:27
2
How did Danielle’s early life and education lead her to become a physician‑author?
7:27–12:47
3
Why did she choose a locum‑tenens career and how did that shape her writing habit?
12:47–19:05
4
What inspired the creation of the Bellevue Literary Review and how does it operate?
19:05–25:27
5
How does Danielle describe the craft of writing and the role of writing workshops?
25:27–31:35
6
What does she see as the biggest changes in medicine over the past decade?
31:35–37:38
7
How does she suggest physicians balance clinical work with creative writing?
37:38–44:02
8
What practical advice does Danielle give to clinicians who want to start writing or improve their work?
44:02–50:39