Danielle Ofri

Singular Intimacies
Reviews: the critics

(You can also see what other writers,and especially readers, are saying about Singular Intimacies...)

Publisher's Weekly
These essays. . . resonate with insight, intelligence, humor and an extraordinary sensitivity to both the patients she treated in this inner-city facility and the staff she worked with. . . .Ofri brings to this memoir a combination of medical information and some very expressive writing. . . The pieces in this powerful collection are tied together by the struggle of a clearly gifted physician to master the complexities of healing.
— Read the full review.

New England Journal of Medicine
Ofri is a gifted writer. Her vignettes ring with truth, and for any physician or patient who knows the dramas of a big-city hospital they will evoke tears, laughter, and memories. Indeed, any reader, physician or not, will find in Singular Intimacies the essence of becoming and being a doctor.
— Robert S. Schwartz Read the full review.

Boston Globe
...[Ofri's] writing tumbles forth with color and emotion. She demonstrates an ear for dialogue, humility about the limits of her medical training, and an extraordinary capacity to be touched by human suffering...Ofri's book is an important addition to the literary canon of medicine.
— Jan Gardner

Kirkus Reviews
Heartwarming memoirs of a young woman's years at a venerable New York City hospital, where she is transformed from bewilder medical student to assured physician. Let's hope there's a whole library of books to come from this talented physician/writer.
— Read the full review.

Boston Globe
...Danielle Ofri's Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue about the emotional life of doctors and their patients, captivated me so much...In the gripping chapter ''M & M'' (morbidity and mortality), she chronicles the medical decisions that ended a patient's life. ''I cried for my belief that intellect conquers all,'' she says... It's this marriage of intellect and emotion that makes Singular Intimacies read like a deftly crafted and luminously written novel.
— Caroline Leavitt

Library Journal
As Ofri relates in this marvelous book, becoming a doctor is a complex process... Her gifted storytelling discloses a variety of patients, their medical needs, and the doctor-hospital-patient interface... It is this alchemy that Ofri's well-crafted prose sucessfully exposes... Highly recommended...
— Read the full review.

The Berkshire Eagle
...Ofri is courageous enough to describe the imperfect world of an urban hospital, to detail her failures and missteps as well as triumphs -- and the successes are framed in terms of the patients' recovery...This book is satisfying as a portrait of a brave, intelligent and engaging woman, as a coming-of-age story and as a window into the world of medicine. I recommend it highly.
— Lesley Beck, Read the full review.

Booklist (*Starred Review*)
[Ofri] tells the profoundly affecting story of her many rites of passage on the journey from student to doctor. . . .And she relates each transforming experience in prose so powerful in its lucidity and quest for truth that it arouses both tears and wonder.
— Read the full review.

The Journal News
...Each of the 15 chapters in Singular Intimacies is a gripping account of the tenuous link between life and death. Together, they tell a story that's not as much about a physician's training as about a healer's birth.
— Barbara Nachman, Read the full review.

Washington Post
...Ofri discovered that she could draw a line between being a doctor and being a woman, that she could hate one patient and care deeply about another, that she could battle the medical establishment and even herself, and that despite modern medicine and her belief in the power of intellect, death conquers all...Her longtime best friend, Josh, died of a heart attack, which led her to the book's central realization: that her relationship with her patients is a sacred zone, populated by "living, breathing, feeling people" -- like Josh, and like herself. Know thyself: That's the theme of [this] book.
— Diane Scharper

The Pharos (Alpha Omega Alpha Magazine)
Life--once again--imitates art. Danielle Ofri offers us 16 biopsies of her medical education and life experiences at Bellevue Hospital...Singular intimacies are well-named, far removed from our traditional concepts of doctor-patient interaction...I wish I had this book when I was becoming a doctor at Bellevue almost 60 years ago. Here in our hospital in northern New Mexico, all..of our family practice residents have received copies. We plan several seminars in which attending physicians an dresidents will discuss some of Ofri's cases, and how the issues raised may be encountered in our own teaching program.
— Irwin Hoffman

Hope Magazine
It takes courage, drive, and a large heart for a young doctor to find beauty in the teeming masses that daily stream through Bellevue's door...Finding meaning and hope where both are often elusive is the strongest reason to read Ofri's book.
— Chloe Breyer, Read the full review.

The Women's Review of Books
[Ofri's] Candide-like adventures as she advances from third-year medical student to resident are harrowing, poetic...she always learns something about herself, medicine, and humanity... Every patient deserves a doctor of Ofri's sensibility, one who recognizes the profound vulnerability of relying on strangers.
— Sharon Lieberman, Read the full review.

Journal of General Internal Medicine
"...Ofri... has written compassionately about a number of compelling experiences during her training. Despite her lack of role models, she is smart enough to figure out how to be a caring and effective physician. Physicians, students, residents, and laypeople willnot only enjoy a series of absorbing stories but will also learn much about the art of doctoring from this book.
— Anna Reisman

Dermanities
Small moments of individual kindness, these singular intimacies, for Ofri form the backbone of good medical care. If, as Osler observed, the secret in caring for the patient lies in caring about the patient, Dr. Ofri has provided an engaging medical bidungsroman that serves as a reminder of the humanistic calling of medicine.
— James Mura, Read the full review.

Canadian Medical Association Journal
Singular Intimacies is well written and replete with examplesof situations frequently encountered by clinical clerks andresidents....[The] book is eminentlyreadable. The anecdotes she relates are at times quite moving,... all are illuminated by a certain poeticsensibility.
— Ted St. Godard