Incidental Findings: Lessons from My Patients in the Art of Medicine

In Singular Intimacies which the New England Journal of Medicine said captured theessence of becoming and being a doctor Danielle Ofri led us into the hectic constantly challenging world of big-city medicine. In Incidental Findings shes finished her training and is learning through practice to become a more rounded healer. The book opens with a dramatic tale of the tables being turned on Dr. Ofri: Shes had to shed the precious white coat and credentials she worked so hard to earn and enter her own hospital as a patient. She experiences the realslight prick and pressure of a long needle as well as the very real sense of invasion and panic that routinely visits her patients.. These fifteen intertwined tales include Living Will where Dr. Ofri treats a man who has lost the will to live and she too comes dangerously close to concluding that he has nothing to live for;Common Ground in which a patients difficult decision to have an abortion highlights the vulnerabilities of doctor and patient alike;Acne where she is confronted by a patient whose physical and emotional abuse she cant possibly heal so she must settle on treating the one thing she can the least of her patients problems; and finally a stunning concluding chapterTools of the Trade where Dr. Ofris touch is the last in a womans long life.