"Singular Intimacies: Using Literature to Bridge the Cultural Gap"

Dr. Danielle Ofri

Assistant Professor of Medicine, New York University
PhD, microbiology; MD; internist in internal medicine
Co-founder and Editor-in-Chief, Bellevue Literary Review
Author, Singular Intimacies and Incidental Findings

As a physician and teacher at the oldest public hospital in the United States, and as a writer and literary editor, Dr. Danielle Ofri speaks with unique insight into the human experience—how illness, healing and the practice of medicine reveal our depth, compassion and sense of meaning. She is an attending physician in Bellevue Hospital’s medical clinic, which has been the home of the most extraordinary human stories throughout its long history in the nation’s most diverse and complex city. In her practice and as an Assistant Professor of Medicine at New York University, Dr. Ofri has focused on reaching the real humanity of her patients and on teaching young doctors to how to do the same.

In this spirit she co-founded and is editor-in-chief of the first literary journal published by a hospital; the Bellevue Literary Journal publishes essays, fiction and poetry that celebrate patients as people and medicine as the art of healing the whole person. Dr. Ofri edited The Best of the Bellevue Literary Review, released in February 2008. She is the author of two literary works of her own, Singular Intimacies and, most recently, Incidental Findings, tales that pull wisdom from the maelstrom of human experience that is New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. Dr. Ofri’s writings have been included in Best American Essays 2002, and Best American Science Writing 2003. She received the Missouri Review Editor’s Prize for nonfiction, and the McGovern award from the American Medical Writers Association.

Dr. Ofri's community lecture, "Singular Intimacies: Using Literature to Bridge the Cultural Gap" was in Kimmel Theatre on Wednesday, March 18, 2009. Additionally, Dr. Ofri participated in class discussions, a writing workshop with Dimensions Reading Group members, and a book signing.

To read about a previous Dimensions workshop or seminar, click here.