bellevue book review

Advertisement

Supported by

Books of The Times

Review: ‘Bellevue’ Celebrates a Hospital Not Crazy, but Compassionate

• Share full article

By Jennifer Senior

• Nov. 16, 2016

Fairly or not, Bellevue is a gothic symbol of darkness and defeat: the destination for those who’ve been crushed and ground to a paste by New York City, or at least seem to have internalized its ghost population of demons and dybbuks. Bellevue is where Mark David Chapman was taken after shooting John Lennon. It is where William Burroughs was taken after deliberately snipping off part of his left pinkie with poultry shears . It is where Norman Mailer was taken after stabbing his second wife, supposedly because she’d told him he’d never be as good as Dostoyevsky.

After reading David Oshinsky’s “Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital,” I Googled, on a whim, the guy who Spidey-climbed Trump Tower this August to get some face time with Mr. Trump, then the Republican nominee. You have one guess where the authorities took him, once they’d unsuctioned him from the 21st floor.

But Bellevue’s psychiatric facilities — and share of tabloid-ready Grand Guignol theatrics — are not what make this institution a singularity. It is, rather, Bellevue’s enduring commitment as a public hospital to the indigent, its relentless insistence on viewing health care as a basic human right.

“In that role,” Mr. Oshinsky writes, “Bellevue has borne witness to every imaginable disease and public health scare, every economic swing and population surge, every medical breakthrough and controversy going back more than two centuries.”

The yellow fever epidemic of the late 1700s? Bellevue treated it. The outbreak of typhus in 1847 and 1848? Bellevue doctors were hauling themselves from their own deathbeds to train their successors. The civilian hospital most involved in the Civil War? Bellevue. The country’s hospital with the most AIDS patients? Bellevue. The New York hospital with the protocols and equipment to fight Ebola? Bellevue.

Bellevue, Bellevue, Bellevue. It was — and remains — the nation’s first first responder. It was also the first hospital to have a maternity ward, the first to have an on-site medical school, the first to have an ambulance corps (originally driven by horses, their coaches outfitted with stretchers, whiskey, bandages, straitjackets and stomach pumps).

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and  log into  your Times account, or  subscribe  for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber?  Log in .

Want all of The Times?  Subscribe .

author site

Home » Book review: Bellevue, by David Oshinsky

Book review: Bellevue, by David Oshinsky

Last updated on July 1, 2020

Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital

What images does the title bring to your mind? Ten Days in a Mad-House ?

Perhaps the most famous — and infamous — hospital in the United States.

In this well-paced, engrossing history and biography of the storied institution, David Oshinsky lays out how Bellevue gained — and earned — it’s ultimate reputation. That of our society’s most reliable of destinations for the ill — from the entitled to the poor.

But what i found most intriguing about the book was the story of social justice that emerges as oshinsky chronicles the institution’s history and journey..

Especially in light of last month’s Twitter storm over the Wall Street Journal’s publication of the controversial op-ed piece (Sept 13, 2019) by Dr. Stanley Goldfarb, Take Two Aspirin and Call Me by My Pronouns . In his letter, the former associate dean of curriculum at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine laid out his argument against medical schools including any form of social justice in their curricula.

In a response letter to the WSJ (September 18, 2019), Dr. Robert M. McLean, M.D., FACP, president of the ACP (American College of Physicians), wrote:

Medical education must train future physicians on these types of public-health issues, as they represent the reality of the world in which they will practice. Physicians have a responsibility to speak up when we can identify solutions for an issue harming our patients’ health. Dr. Robert M. McLean, in letter to the WSJ

So, it was with all of this in mind that I read Oshinsky’s Bellevue , and was struck by the inescapable aspects of social justice that both drove and responded to the journey of the institution.

The history of bellevue, is, in fact, a history of social justice and medicine in the u.s..

Starting with the introduction. Oshinsky writes,

Every immigrant group has availed itself of Bellevue’s protective umbrella over the centuries. (introduction, bellevue)

Early on, he devotes time to the “lurid exposes” –including Nellie Bly’s Ten Days in a Madhouse —

“The hospital became synonymous with bedlam, dwarfing its immense achievements in clinical care and medical research.” (introduction).

–In order to then set all of that aside, to get to the real story of Bellevue.

He then brings to life through vivid prose each of those immense achievements..

The hospital played a giant role in the epidemics of history — including typhus fever, influenza, tuberculosis, AIDS, and Ebola.

He makes the case clear along the way that at Bellevue, “free hospital care is provided to the ‘medically indigent’ as a right, not a privilege.” (introduction).

The typhus fever epidemic led to the recognition by physicians that disease was associated with unsanitary living conditions (recall this was before germ theory):.

It was only when high numbers of medical staff had died themselves from the epidemic, that “city officials in 1852 turned over the administration of Bellevue Hospital to a ten-member Board of Governors dominated by physicians and social reformers ” (chapter 3).

This led to the creation of the “house staff.”

“…at the bottom of the ladder…five recent medical school graduates who would live at Bellevue and earn a nominal $130 for a six-month term.” (chapter 3)

As a result of these early physicians’ efforts, in 1866, The Metropolitan Health Act was passed.

It created a Board of Health for New York City and the surrounding area — the first of it’s kind in the United States. To tackle the “endemic diseases related to overcrowding, poor sanitation, and miserable working conditions– in short, the plagues of modern city life.” (chapter 6).

Led by Bellevue surgeon Dr. Stephen Smith, “the lonely health crusader versus New York City’s ever-expanding political machine” (chapter 6), the group of Bellevue physicians would successfully reverse the city’s alarming mortality rate by championing public health measures.

Dr. Smith pioneered preventive medicine, and “founded the American Public Health Association, which helped turn a well-meaning social cause into a highly trained profession .”

Another era where bellevue and social justice were intertwined was during prohibition..

“The flow of illegal whiskey…fueled a curious new specialty, developed in Bellevue’s pathology labs, to provide a scientific explanation for the manner in which a person died. Its founders called it forensic medicine.” (chapter 14).

Dr. Charles Norris, the first of Bellevue’s Chief Medical Examiners, would pioneer the field. He would set out to abolish the preexisting corrupt coroners system run by the city, using his own salary and personal fortune when his funding would be denied.

When the U.S. government decided “to scare the public into compliance by increasing the levels of poison in the denatured alcohol…being used in illegal whiskey” (chapter 14), Norris would point out the measure disproportionately affected the poor . Norris undertook an investigation into the full impact of poisoned alcohol on New Yorkers.

“The Norris Report” would claim “that alcohol poisoning was the greatest health menace currently facing the city…Prohibition hadn’t stopped the consumption of alcohol; it had simply made it deadlier.” (chapter 14).

Oshinsky later in the book walks the reader through the introduction of medicare and medicaid in the 1960s..

–And the resulting complexities of the New York City hospital systems and the disproportionate burden placed on the public versus the private hospitals. A problem that continues to exist to this day (in this physician-author’s experience).

The 1980s were then dominated by “the AIDS crisis at Bellevue; a place where doctors went the extra mile, as was the creed, to serve the most vulnerable and despised patients, whatever the cost to themselves. When others flinched or turned their backs, Bellevue stayed the course.” (chapter 17).

In the 1990s, the role of bellevue came into question because of “the growing disconnect between the aims of the affiliated medical schools and the needs of the public hospital patient.” (chapter 19)., but a mayoral “panel concluded that ‘the city should remain in the hospital business, because of…its social responsibilities in this area , including the necessity of assuring that care be provided to all who need it.'” (chapter 17), oshinsky chronicles the only time in its history that bellevue closed its doors on november 5, 2012 — due to hurricane sandy..

A Bellevue resident who helped to evacuate patients by carrying them down the staircase expressed “that night as the most rewarding experience of my career…The visceral feeling of ‘This is why I went into medicine’ is my most powerful sentiment left behind from the storm.” (chapter 19).

Oshinsky writes of the unprecedented closure of the hospital: “If there was a silver lining, it was the recognition of how valuable Bellevue’s services were , and how hard it was to get on without them. Doctors at other city hospitals were struck by the level of coordination and sophistication among the teams of Bellevue…It was a level of care, some acknowledged, rarely seen at their own institutions… Bellevue averaged 500,000 visits a year. Its closing had proved a grim reminder of its worth.”

In the epilogue, Oshinsky writes:

Several years ago, four NYU doctors with deep ties to Bellevue wrote a stirring defense of the role of the public hospital in American medical education. Where else, they wrote, could an aspiring nurse or physician ‘not yet accepting of the status quo,’ confront the ‘harsher inequities’ of modern life, from AIDS and substance abuse to homelessness and prison health care? Public hospitals embody a sense of mission. The core ethos of working in a place that exists to minister to the sick regardless of the walk of life or ability to pay is enormously influential in shaping the worldview of [those] in training.’ Bellevue, epilogue

These are just a few highlights from the history that Bellevue depicts going back to the 1700s. I encourage the reader to pick up the book for more, including the history of the first ambulance service (horse and carriage), and the impact of nurses improving postpartum/obstetric care for patients.

In conclusion, i found bellevue to be an enjoyable read. it depicts the history of bellevue hospital as a mirror and metaphor for the inseparable missions of medicine and social justice. i would highly recommend it, not only to physicians, but anyone interested in social justice and the history of medicine..

want to know what the New York Times thought? here’s their book review.

Did you read Bellevue? What are your thoughts? Please comment below.

Share this:

• Bellevue Hospital
• David Oshinsky

Forgot Your Password?

New to The Nation ? Subscribe

Print subscriber? Activate your online access

Current Issue

• December 3, 2016

One Flew Over Bellevue

As little as david oshinsky might care to admit it, the idea that bellevue is a place for “crazies” has stuck in our cultural consciousness., white people have never forgiven haitians for claiming their freedom white people have never forgiven haitians for claiming their freedom.

Elie Mystal

How Donald Trump Got Loomered How Donald Trump Got Loomered

How historical fiction redefined the literary canon how historical fiction redefined the literary canon.

Alexander Manshel

The Enduring Influence of Marx’s Masterpiece The Enduring Influence of Marx’s Masterpiece

Books & the Arts / Wendy Brown

Latest from the nation

Trump and vance won’t be happy until springfield haitians die, barbara lee on her vote to avert forever wars, and why trump is not a peace candidate, campaigns and elections, abortion took center stage at the debate, but queering reproductive justice must be the goal, how donald trump got loomered, editor's picks.

VIDEO: People in Denmark Are a Lot Happier Than People in the United States. Here’s Why.

Historical Amnesia About Slavery Is a Tool of White Supremacy

• Bookreporter
• ReadingGroupGuides
• AuthorsOnTheWeb

The Book Report Network

Sign up for our newsletters!

Regular Features

Author spotlights, "bookreporter talks to" videos & podcasts, "bookaccino live: a lively talk about books", favorite monthly lists & picks, seasonal features, book festivals, sports features, bookshelves.

• Coming Soon

Newsletters

• Weekly Update
• On Sale This Week

Fall Reading

• Summer Reading
• Spring Preview
• Winter Reading
• Holiday Cheer

Word of Mouth

Submitting a book for review, write the editor, you are here:.

• About the Book

From the bestselling author and "master of the medical thriller" ( The New York Times ), Robin Cook, comes a new tale of suspense-horror about a first-year resident whose life-shattering visions reveal the truth behind some of the greatest medical advances in the history of medicine.

Twenty-three-year-old Michael “Mitt” Fuller starts his surgical residency with great anticipation at the nearly 300-year-old, iconic Bellevue Hospital, following in the footsteps of four previous, celebrated Fuller generations. The pressure is on for this newly minted doctor, and to his advantage he’s always had a secret sixth sense, a sensitivity to the nonphysical. But quickly one patient after another assigned to his care begin to die from mysterious causes. As he tries to juggle these inexplicable deaths with the demands of being a first-year resident, things rapidly spiral out of control.

Visions begin to plague Mitt --- visions of a little girl in a bloodstained dress, bloodcurdling screams in the distance and worse. As bodies mount and Mitt’s stress level rises, he finds himself drawn to the monumental, abandoned Bellevue Psychopathic Hospital building, which to his astonishment has somehow defied the wrecking-ball and still stands a few doors north of the modern Bellevue Hospital high-rise. Forcing an unauthorized entry into this storied but foreboding structure, Mitt discovers he’s more closely tied to the sins of the past than he ever thought possible.

Bellevue by Robin Cook

• Publication Date: December 3, 2024
• Genres: Fiction , Horror , Suspense , Thriller
• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons
• ISBN-10: 0593718836
• ISBN-13: 9780593718834

New book goes inside world-famous Bellevue Hospital

When Ebola arrived in New York City in 2014, there was little doubt where infected patients should be quarantined. For those of us who practice medicine in Manhattan, Bellevue was the natural choice.

But how did America's most famous public hospital become so closely associated with high-risk, downtrodden and marginalized patients? We find out in Pulitzer Prize-winner David Oshinsky's compelling new book, Bellevue : Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital (Doubleday, 322 pp., *** out of four stars).

In this rich history, we bear witness to a remarkable transformation as Bellevue evolves from bare-bones almshouse appendage in the 1700s to world-class academic medical center today.

Now an elite training ground for health-care workers, the former pesthouse once only accepted patients who were unable to pay for their care. Those with nowhere else to turn — “the poorest of the poor, the dregs of society, the semi-criminal, starving, unwelcome class, who suffer and die unrecognized” — found a home at Bellevue. This reputation would permeate popular culture; the phrase "they're waiting for you at Bellevue" eventually became a euphemism for mental illness. (Springsteen used it for the song For You .)

The infectious, the insane and the indigent are not the only ones indebted to this remarkable institution. Bellevue's pathology lab is where forensic medicine was founded. Researchers toiling in the basement morgue found ingenious ways to detect poisons and potions, trace bullet trajectories and even developed the modern sobriety test. If the right network executive reads this book, we might end up with  CSI: Bellevue .

Much of this engaging story unfolds as a response to crisis. We see how the hospital employees from prior generations adapted to outbreaks of yellow fever and typhus, setting the stage for the modern plague: HIV. Bellevue once housed more AIDS patients than any other hospital in the country, which created a unique opportunity for burgeoning physicians. To train at Bellevue in the 1980s meant “seeing more cases of Kaposi's sarcoma than breast cancer, more obscure parasitic infections than the common flu.”

We also encounter haunting descriptions of antebellum medical practices. Long after I finished the book, I was still thinking about the description of a terrified 15-year-old boy on a Bellevue operating table in 1841, held tightly by his father, as a surgeon approached with a saw. In that scene, I came to appreciate why Bellevue has been described as the life beat and death rattle of the city.

Bellevue is bursting with story lines, so many, in fact, that it can make the narrative feel disjointed. But this is a minor quibble; Oshinsky simply has a wealth of great material, and it’s a joy to traverse it with him.

Nearly every week, I’m forced to tell an uninsured patient that he or she is unable to seek care in one of my hospital’s outpatient clinics for financial reasons. It’s an agonizing conversation, but after the patient’s look of disappointment fades, I’m able to offer a glimmer of good news. There is one place in the city that will provide excellent medical care, regardless of a person’s ability to pay. It is that single word which has provided so much hope to so many for so long: Bellevue .

Matt McCarthy is the author of The Real Doctor Will See You Shortly . He is an internist and infectious disease specialist at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital.

• Biggest New Books
• Non-Fiction
• All Categories
• First Readers Club Daily Giveaway
• How It Works

Get the Book Marks Bulletin

Email address:

• Categories Fiction Fantasy Graphic Novels Historical Horror Literary Literature in Translation Mystery, Crime, & Thriller Poetry Romance Speculative Story Collections Non-Fiction Art Biography Criticism Culture Essays Film & TV Graphic Nonfiction Health History Investigative Journalism Memoir Music Nature Politics Religion Science Social Sciences Sports Technology Travel True Crime

September 9 – 13, 2024

• Natasha Wheatley profiles Eduard Habsburg
• What do we owe to language in times of unimaginable violence?
• Laura Wheatman Hill digs into the NaNoWriMo AI kerfuffle

• ADMIN AREA MY BOOKSHELF MY DASHBOARD MY PROFILE SIGN OUT SIGN IN

by Marc Siegel ‧ RELEASE DATE: April 1, 1998

A hyperkinetic debut about an intern’s induction into the byzantine manners of Manhattan’s Bellevue hospital. David Levy, M.D., naively starts his internship imagining that he—ll find orderly learning and ample opportunity to ease suffering and save lives. Instead, he finds himself going through the motions with chronically ill patients while being alternately ridiculed and ignored by the resident in charge—“Fat” Goldman, a chain-smoking grouch with a schoolboy crush on wily Delia, a medical student. David’s childhood friend and fellow intern Sal incurs Goldman’s wrath by showily pursuing Delia himself and then flaunting his success. Meanwhile, amidst the requisite drudgery and humbling run-ins with nurses, David worries about Sal, whose performance is increasingly erratic. Making matters worse, no one seems to be supervising Goldman: The attending physician, Dr. Kell, has only one concern—enlisting patients for his top-secret study involving intravenous doses of an unnamed red liquid. After several blow-ups, Sal is suddenly nowhere to be found, then shows up in the emergency room days later, sweaty and delirious. Are Delia’s machinations or Dr. Kell’s protocols somehow to blame? Just as he seems to be getting better, Sal disappears from the hospital, then turns up dead. Worn down by despair, theatrical nightmares, and incoherent (exhaustion-fueled?) suspicions, David gets caught up in his own career-jeopardizing dalliance with Delia. Luckily, though, he gets over her, becomes reconciled to injustice and chaos, and buckles down to learn his trade. Author-internist Siegel’s group portrait of the oddballs and visionaries who inhabit Bellevue’s wards is lively and often engaging. But the rushing about engendered by David’s preoccupation with Sal is tiresome, and if nefarious goings-on did lead to Sal’s death, they aren’t spelled out in the whiny final confrontation between David and Dr. Kell. A messy mix, then, of satire, sleep deprivation, and suspense, without payoff.

Pub Date: April 1, 1998

ISBN: 0-684-83602-5

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 1998

LITERARY FICTION

Share your opinion of this book

THE SECRET HISTORY

by Donna Tartt ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 16, 1992

The Brat Pack meets The Bacchae in this precious, way-too-long, and utterly unsuspenseful town-and-gown murder tale. A bunch of ever-so-mandarin college kids in a small Vermont school are the eager epigones of an aloof classics professor, and in their exclusivity and snobbishness and eagerness to please their teacher, they are moved to try to enact Dionysian frenzies in the woods. During the only one that actually comes off, a local farmer happens upon them—and they kill him. But the death isn't ruled a murder—and might never have been if one of the gang—a cadging sybarite named Bunny Corcoran—hadn't shown signs of cracking under the secret's weight. And so he too is dispatched. The narrator, a blank-slate Californian named Richard Pepen chronicles the coverup. But if you're thinking remorse-drama, conscience masque, or even semi-trashy who'll-break-first? page-turner, forget it: This is a straight gee-whiz, first-to-have-ever-noticed college novel—"Hampden College, as a body, was always strangely prone to hysteria. Whether from isolation, malice, or simple boredom, people there were far more credulous and excitable than educated people are generally thought to be, and this hermetic, overheated atmosphere made it a thriving black petri dish of melodrama and distortion." First-novelist Tartt goes muzzy when she has to describe human confrontations (the murder, or sex, or even the ping-ponging of fear), and is much more comfortable in transcribing aimless dorm-room paranoia or the TV shows that the malefactors anesthetize themselves with as fate ticks down. By telegraphing the murders, Tartt wants us to be continually horrified at these kids—while inviting us to semi-enjoy their manneristic fetishes and refined tastes. This ersatz-Fitzgerald mix of moralizing and mirror-looking (Jay McInerney shook and poured the shaker first) is very 80's—and in Tartt's strenuous version already seems dated, formulaic. Les Nerds du Mal—and about as deep (if not nearly as involving) as a TV movie.

Pub Date: Sept. 16, 1992

ISBN: 1400031702

Page Count: 592

Publisher: Knopf

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992

More by Donna Tartt

BOOK REVIEW

by Donna Tartt

More About This Book

SEEN & HEARD

HOUSE OF LEAVES

by Mark Z. Danielewski ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 6, 2000

The story's very ambiguity steadily feeds its mysteriousness and power, and Danielewski's mastery of postmodernist and...

An amazingly intricate and ambitious first novel - ten years in the making - that puts an engrossing new spin on the traditional haunted-house tale.

Texts within texts, preceded by intriguing introductory material and followed by 150 pages of appendices and related "documents" and photographs, tell the story of a mysterious old house in a Virginia suburb inhabited by esteemed photographer-filmmaker Will Navidson, his companion Karen Green (an ex-fashion model), and their young children Daisy and Chad.  The record of their experiences therein is preserved in Will's film The Davidson Record - which is the subject of an unpublished manuscript left behind by a (possibly insane) old man, Frank Zampano - which falls into the possession of Johnny Truant, a drifter who has survived an abusive childhood and the perverse possessiveness of his mad mother (who is institutionalized).  As Johnny reads Zampano's manuscript, he adds his own (autobiographical) annotations to the scholarly ones that already adorn and clutter the text (a trick perhaps influenced by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest ) - and begins experiencing panic attacks and episodes of disorientation that echo with ominous precision the content of Davidson's film (their house's interior proves, "impossibly," to be larger than its exterior; previously unnoticed doors and corridors extend inward inexplicably, and swallow up or traumatize all who dare to "explore" their recesses).  Danielewski skillfully manipulates the reader's expectations and fears, employing ingeniously skewed typography, and throwing out hints that the house's apparent malevolence may be related to the history of the Jamestown colony, or to Davidson's Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a dying Vietnamese child stalked by a waiting vulture.  Or, as "some critics [have suggested,] the house's mutations reflect the psychology of anyone who enters it."

Pub Date: March 6, 2000

ISBN: 0-375-70376-4

Page Count: 704

Publisher: Pantheon

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2000

More by Mark Z. Danielewski

by Mark Z. Danielewski

• Discover Books Fiction Thriller & Suspense Mystery & Detective Romance Science Fiction & Fantasy Nonfiction Biography & Memoir Teens & Young Adult Children's
• News & Features Bestsellers Book Lists Profiles Perspectives Awards Seen & Heard Book to Screen Kirkus TV videos In the News
• Kirkus Prize Winners & Finalists About the Kirkus Prize Kirkus Prize Judges
• Magazine Current Issue All Issues Manage My Subscription Subscribe
• Writers’ Center Hire a Professional Book Editor Get Your Book Reviewed Advertise Your Book Launch a Pro Connect Author Page Learn About The Book Industry
• More Kirkus Diversity Collections Kirkus Pro Connect My Account/Login
• About Kirkus History Our Team Contest FAQ Press Center Info For Publishers
• Privacy Policy
• Terms & Conditions
• Reprints, Permission & Excerpting Policy

© Copyright 2024 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Popular in this Genre

Hey there, book lover.

We’re glad you found a book that interests you!

Please select an existing bookshelf

Create a new bookshelf.

We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!

Please sign up to continue.

It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!

Already have an account? Log in.

Trouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.

Almost there!

• Industry Professional

Welcome Back!

Sign in using your Kirkus account

Contact us: 1-800-316-9361 or email [email protected].

Don’t fret. We’ll find you.

Magazine Subscribers ( How to Find Your Reader Number )

If You’ve Purchased Author Services

Don’t have an account yet? Sign Up.

NY Times review of the Bellevue Literary Review

by Dinitia Smith New York Times

”Just tell me a story,” Dr. Danielle Ofri admonishes her medical students and interns at morning rounds. To Dr. Ofri, an attending physician at Bellevue Hospital Center, a part-time writer and the editor in chief of the Bellevue Literary Review, every patient’s history is a mystery story, a narrative that unfolds full of surprises, exposing the vulnerability at the human core.

The review was founded two years ago by Dr. Ofri and Dr. Martin Blaser shortly after he became chairman of the department of medicine at the New York University School of Medicine, with which Bellevue is affiliated. The two created the journal to ”touch upon relationships to the human body, illness, health and healing,” according to its mission statement, a broad canvas indeed.

Bellevue may be the only municipal hospital in the country to have a literary review. It has attracted well-known writers despite not paying its contributors. The review has published poems by Philip Levine, David Lehman and Sharon Olds, and this fall it is publishing its third issue, with poetry by Rick Moody, who is better known for his fiction. There is also a poem by Julia Alvarez called ”Bellevue,” which reads, ”My mother used to say that she’d end up/ at Bellevue if we didn’t all behave.”

Ms. Alvarez continues: ”Of course, she wanted to go to Bellevue/ where the world was safe, the grates familiar,/ the howling not unlike her stifled sobs.”

Few contributions are by doctors. One, by Robert Oldshue of Boston, is his first published short story, ”The Mona Lisa,” about a nursing home patient who is accidentally locked in an elevator overnight.

There is also an essay by Joan Kip, 84, on being widowed. ”Alongside his love for me is my own expansive love for him,” Ms. Kip writes, ”as we move in concert with one another across the illusion of separateness, embraced within a spiral of light, which has no beginning, no end.” Two pieces in the magazine are about ears. One, by Cortney Davis, a nurse practitioner, is a poem: ”Pearly, uninformed, it waits/ for the otoscope’s puff of air.” The other is an essay by Eric Jones, a freelance science editor, about having an earache as a child. Dr. Blaser said he helped start the review to improve the medical students’ writing. ”It became clear to me what poor writers most doctors are,” he said.

He has also instituted a new curriculum requirement at the hospital in which each student must write an essay about a patient. Like Dr. Blaser, Dr. Ofri said she was on a crusade to raise the level of medical students’ writing. Doctors speak and write as if ”there are no people there,” she told her students on rounds. ”Think of the way we give presentations. We say, ‘The spleen was palpated.’ Who palpated the spleen?”

”We say, ‘The patient admitted having a mammogram,” Dr. Ofri said. ”Why are we so suspicious of our patients?”

Reading and writing literature, Dr. Ofri said in an interview, helps doctors ”think more subtly, pay attention to the finer details, read between the lines, look for deeper meaning.”

Publication of The Bellevue Review is part of a national trend in medical education for schools to use literature to teach doctors how to write better and clearer case histories and to empathize more with patients. At Columbia University, the College of Physicians and Surgeons has a program in narrative medicine in which medical students read literary texts and compose essays and short stories to learn to write about patients in ordinary language.

The Bellevue Literary Review was started with $20,000 from the department of medicine at N.Y.U. Its unpaid staff consists of three doctors, Dr. Ofri; Jerome Lowenstein, a nephrologist; and Dr. Blaser, who is the publisher. It has 500 paid subscribers, not many even by the modest standards of literary magazines.

But it seems fitting that Bellevue Hospital, where writers have been committed in the extremes of mental collapse and which is at the center of American cultural life, would have a literary magazine. Malcolm Lowry set part of his novel ”Lunar Caustic” in Bellevue after being committed to its psychiatric ward for observation. Part of Billy Wilder’s movie ”The Lost Weekend,” which starred Ray Milland as an alcoholic, takes place at the hospital.

And among the writers who spent time as patients there are Norman Mailer, after he stabbed his wife, Adele, in 1960; William Burroughs, after he cut off his fingertip and gave it to a boyfriend; and the poet Delmore Schwartz, after he attacked the art critic Hilton Kramer, who he thought was having an affair with his wife. The playwright Eugene O’Neill and the poet Gregory Corso also spent time at Bellevue in stages of nervous breakdowns. The novelist Walker Percy was an intern there but left medicine after contracting tuberculosis.

Dr. Ofri emphasized that the magazine was not aimed just at doctors. ”Everyone has been touched by illness,” she said. ”Hopefully, it will illuminate something for them.” The review is sold nationally by Barnes & Noble and other bookstores.

”When you walk into Bellevue, there is humanity from all over the world,” said Dr. Ofri, who is 37, small and fine-boned and has a precise manner. She has published stories in The Missouri Review, the magazine Tikkun and other literary magazines and is writing a novel. In May the Beacon Press is scheduled to bring out a collection of her essays, ”Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue.”

”Just tell me a story,” Dr. Ofri tells her students again and again. ”Don’t just read from your notes.”

On rounds recently Dr. Ofri and her students discussed a Tibetan monk who had been referred by the Bellevue/N.Y.U. Program for Survivors of Torture. After demonstrating for Tibetan independence, he was tortured by the Chinese. The monk was also a hemophiliac, and his legs were deformed by internal bleeding.

”What is the social history?” Dr. Ofri asked the medical students standing around the patient. ”The social history is important. If a patient lives on the street, and you send them out with dressings that need to be changed, that is a problem.” The monk, it turned out, was staying with a group of Tibetans in Queens.

At the end of rounds Dr. Ofri often makes her tired students listen to a poem or an essay. ”Sometimes it requires chocolate to make them stay,” she said.

A recent poem was ”Gaudeamus Igitur” (”Let Us Rejoice Therefore”) by John Stone, a doctor and writer, first delivered as a valedictory address at Emory University School of Medicine in Atlanta. It was inspired by the medieval song of that name, and its form, in which every line begins with ”for,” was suggested by ”Jubilate Agno” (”Rejoice in the Lamb”), written by the 18th-century poet Christopher Smart in praise of his cat.

”For this is the day you know too little,” Dr. Ofri read, ”against the day when you will know too much/ For you will be invincible/ and vulnerable in the same breath/ which is the breath of your patients.”

She continued: ”For there will be addictions: whiskey, tobacco, love/ For they will be difficult to cure/ For you yourself will pass the kidney stone of pain.”

The poem ended: ”For there will be days of joy/ For there will be elevators of elation/ and you will walk triumphantly/ in purest joy/ along the halls of the hospital/ and say Yes to all the dark corners/ where no one is listening.”

Filed Under:

• Bellevue Literary Press
• book review
• New York Times

Nursing Clio

The Personal is Historical

Book Review: Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital

America’s oldest public hospital started as a tiny, one-room infirmary in a New York City almshouse in 1736. Two hundred and eighty-one years later, it’s a sprawling hospital center complex with almost 900 beds, a massive outpatient service, dozens of adult and pediatric specialties, and medical care provided in over 200 languages. David Oshinsky narrates this transformation in Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America’s Most Storied Hospital .

I realize it may not be obvious why a book about a hospital makes for an excellent beach read. True, it’s not Jo Nesbo’s latest crime thriller (you have my permission to read The Thirst first), but Bellevue is also fast-paced, intricate, and tinged with a bit of blood — a non-fiction thriller, if you will. I even read part of it at the beach ( I have evidence! )

From yellow fever to HIV/AIDS, from amputations without anesthesia to microsurgery, from germ theory to electroshock therapy, and from charity care to Medicaid, Bellevue has participated in almost all medical breakthroughs of the past few centuries. It also contributed to the development of new tools, such as ambulances, that are now ubiquitous. And, although it’s embedded in the American popular imagination for its treatment of celebrities and psychopaths , it is also, Oshinsky argues, “our quintessential public hospital — the flagship institution of America’s largest city, where free hospital care is provided to the ‘medically indigent’ as a right, not a privilege” (4).

Bellevue is, to be sure, an institutional history. But it’s also a history of medicine, of New York City, and of America. It’s therefore a history of the intersections of immigration and medicine, poverty and disease, gender and urban space, religion and public health, technology and forensic science, infrastructure and mental health, and war and medical education, to name just a few of the topics that emerge over 322 pages of fast-moving text.

Since its publication in December 2016, plenty of book reviewers have rightfully lauded Bellevue — the New York Times (“distractingly interesting”), the Boston Globe (“deliciously readable”), the Chicago Tribune (“deeply engrossing…a compelling tale”), the New York Review of Books (“excellent”), the Seattle Times (“comprehensive, fascinating, and informative”), and Nature (“sweeping” and “vivid”). As is typical, reviewers have also pointed out some flaws, mostly absences. They want more on Bellevue’s “ symbolic cultural legacy ,” more about its criminal psychiatric ward and services for survivors of torture , more stories of average doctors and patients , and more relevance to contemporary health care debates .

And, as some reviewers noted, Oshinsky can overplay his hand. For example, in an otherwise fascinating chapter, he overemphasizes the importance of Bellevue to the development of forensic medicine. Bellevue was important, but as the work of legal historians such as Mitra Sharafi and Binyamin Blum show, colonial agents of the British Empire became deeply invested in forensic medicine in the mid-nineteenth century, long before Bellevue’s pathology department entered the scene.

Nevertheless, Oshinsky’s ability to convey broad swaths of history through Bellevue is one of his greatest strengths as a writer. While historians of medicine may find some chapters familiar rather than new, Bellevue provides a great opportunity for historians of any field to study the craft. It’s not perfect, but it offers a master class in writing a pleasurable, smart read for a broad audience — exactly the kind of book I find useful to think with, through, and about over the summer. 1

Briefly, here are three (of the many) ways Bellevue offers lessons in the craft of historical writing.

Writing the Already Known

It would be strange to write a book about a hospital that witnessed and evolved through a number of epidemics — yellow fever, cholera, typhus, tuberculosis, HIV, Ebola — without discussing them. At the same time, it can be hard to write about topics for which an extensive literature exists.

Take yellow fever: early Americanists know that it decimated Philadelphia in 1793. Eventually, the devastating consequences of yellow fever contributed to the creation of the U.S. Public Health Service. But in 1795, when yellow fever arrived in New York City, physicians, including those who treated the poor at what was then known as Bel-Vue, did not understand the disease mechanism. They knew only that it was deadly and that the poor seemed to die more often.

The unresolvable torment caused by yellow fever is old hat to a historian of medicine. So what does Oshinsky do to make it relevant and interesting? He points out that these doctors frequently noticed the prevalence of mosquitoes in their journals and letters (17). By incorporating the ordinary observations of medical practitioners affiliated with the hospital, Oshinsky offers a window into the way they experienced yellow fever and the ways yellow fever shaped Bellevue’s early history, even as New York’s medical men remained clueless about the importance of their notes.

Whether discussing New York or the nation, Oshinsky moves deftly between Bellevue and its contexts. Take the opening to chapter 5, “A Hospital in War”:

[gblockquote]Bellevue Hospital Medical College opened its doors on April 11, 1861. The following day, Confederate gunners rained down cannon fire on Fort Sumter, in Charleston harbor, and the Civil War began.[/gblockquote]

In two sentences, he bridges the previous chapter (on Bellevue’s role in professionalizing medical education) to the new one, establishes the broader history in which he’ll discuss Bellevue, and identifies the Civil War as an important agent in Bellevue’s history (its New York location did not isolate it from either the literal or figurative wounds of battle, and it contended with an influx of injured patients despite a staff depleted by conscription and enlistment).

The Civil War’s tentacles stretch across multiple chapters, and Oshinsky resists the temptation to lob all the details at the reader at once. Instead, he parcels out background information as needed. Chapter 9, “Nightingales,” for example, underscores that the Bellevue Training School for Nurses (established in 1873) owed a debt to the Women’s Nursing Corps and discusses the role of women and wartime nursing when relevant to later advances at Bellevue. Likewise, chapter 7, “The Bellevue Ambulance,” connects the Civil War and New York City’s simmering Protestant-Catholic tension to illuminate how and why the horse-drawn ambulance contributed to Bellevue’s standing.

Chapter Structure

With chapters ranging from 9-24 pages, Bellevue packs a lot of material into small containers. Put differently, these chapters are one-third to two-thirds the length of many an academic monograph, yet accomplish as much if not more than longer chapters.

Chapter 11, “A Tale of Two Presidents,” weaves together the death and life of two presidents, James Garfield and Grover Cleveland with the trajectories of two Bellevue doctors, William Welch and William Halstead. The connective tissue is the effort to convince American physicians and surgeons to accept English surgeon Joseph Lister’s Germ Theory. The resistance to antiseptic medicine played a role in Garfield’s death from an assassin’s bullet, while the acceptance of disinfectants, clean instruments, and a sterile surgical field helped prolong Cleveland’s life. In between, the new research university at Johns Hopkins, philanthropy, Robert Koch’s discovery of TB bacteria through the lens of a microscope, and the discovery of cocaine as a nerve blocker (and addictive drug), effectively show the multiple moving parts that changed medicine.

There’s lots more to learn from Bellevue — about structuring sentences and about the history of a major public hospital. Its compact but connected chapters make it easy to pick up and read in short intervals, which makes it an ideal companion for an afternoon at the beach, an evening at the beer garden, or a weekend at the lake.

• Everyone has their writing tics, but I probably wouldn’t have noticed the almost 30 instances of the word “hardly” had I not just culled numerous instances of the word from my own book manuscript. Return to text.

Ronit Y. Stahl

Ronit Y. Stahl is a fellow in biomedical ethics in the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania. She was previously a postdoctoral research associate at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University in S. Louis and earned her Ph.D. in history from the University of Michigan in 2014. Her book Enlisting Faith: How the Military Chaplaincy Shaped Religion and State in Modern America is forthcoming from Harvard University Press in Fall 2017.

• Ronit Y. Stahl https://nursingclio.org/author/ronit-y-stahl/ The Miseries and Heartbreak of Backstreet Abortions: Before and After Roe
• Ronit Y. Stahl https://nursingclio.org/author/ronit-y-stahl/ The Burdens of Conscience: Thoughts on Burwell v. Hobby Lobby
• Ronit Y. Stahl https://nursingclio.org/author/ronit-y-stahl/ For Women in the Workplace: A Lesson and a Cautionary Tale
• Ronit Y. Stahl https://nursingclio.org/author/ronit-y-stahl/ Stop Rape: A WWII Chaplain's Advice

When our Patreon gets to $500/month, we’ll be able to compensate our writers. This has been a long-term goal of Nursing Clio; now you can help us reach it! If you enjoy our content, support us and our writers by becoming a member of our Patreon.

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Email Address

A journal of humanity and human experience

Coming up next

Subscribe now to get our exciting upcoming issue on the theme of body politic., as featured on npr's morning edition, npr’s neda ulaby reported on  blr ‘s 20th anniversary, featuring  blr editor danielle ofri, along with author celeste ng. long before celeste ng reached stratospheric popularity with  everything i never told you  and  little fires everywhere , she was an emerging author, whose story “girls, at play” appeared in  blr  and then won a pushcart prize., whiting award winner, blr was awarded a whiting literary magazine prize for “excellence in publishing, advocacy for writers, and a unique contribution to the strength of the overall literary community.”, blr off the page.

Off The Page: Dear Grim Outlook

Off the page: the gun goes off….

Off The Page: In Memoriam, Fanny Imlay (1794-1816)

Discover more, pale unhappy dog.

Li has never seen a kidney, but he imagines a flesh-colored ball the size of a fist. He wonders how he will transport it on his motorcycle, whether he will seal it inside a plastic bag with duct tape or place it in a cooler lined with ice.

A Zoom Call, Before Treatment

He has started praying – / my mother says, clenching in her hands / a blurry set of pixels.

Dusk in Dupont Circle

A wingspan so wide it soared beyond the sidewalk / like a small plane. I turned, I had to turn, find where it landed

make a whole ecosystem under my touch / huddle the howling fox the heavy elephant 

The Foreign Cinema

One day in those first months after her mother’s death, Cenem resolved to finally see Los Angeles. She’d spent the afternoon at one of the cheap matinees, seeing Casablanca yet again, and after, went directly to the used bookstore off Taksim Square in search of a copy of Baedecker’s California.

Ordinary Psalm with Near Blindness

The world mostly gone, I make it what I want: / from the balcony, the morning is a silver robe of mist / I make a reckless blessing of it

LETTERS TO MICHIKO

God knows my father did his share of speed, but it was the smoking that finally got him.

I’ve given away the black Samsonite suitcase/ that for thirty-five years enfolded my suits/ like a wallet

Looking at Aquaman

Something nobody warns you about, when you get very sick, is that you have to be polite. You have to be Emily f-ing Post every minute of the day,

Praise & Recognition

``With every issue, Bellevue Literary Review probes our understanding of the human body and mind in new ways. It is essential reading for anyone who deals with sickness and health, anyone interested in narrative medicine, anyone who simply needs a dose of deep grace and humanity.”

“The editors have produced a journal of uncommon literary quality.”

“I subscribe and receive literally hundreds of magazines every year. Of all those magazines, none stands out more than Bellevue Literary Review.”

“These two non-fiction pieces in BLR are powerful, honest, and heartrending. They lifted me up because of the truths released onto the pages. Both deal with problems our family is suffering through, so on a personal level, the authors are helping me grapple.”

“BLR's contents are at once practically instructive, and yet intangibly inspiring and utterly gripping. I can’t imagine my work as a writer, or a doctor, without it.”

“After reading it cover to cover, I came away walloped by the breadth and depth of the pain it highlights.”

“No human thing is more universal than illness, in all its permutations, and no literary publication holds more credibility on the subject than Bellevue Literary Review.”

“A kaleidoscope of creativity. . . The selections are unsentimental and often unpredictable.”

“What is most impressive about BLR, though, is how the editors can stretch their own boundaries.”

“Ask any healthcare worker, ask any patient who has come back from illness and fear, and you will hear stories that might change your life. That's what BLR offers.”

“BLR is loyal to its theme but never constrained by it, uncovering boundless tonal and narrative possibilities as it contemplates the body as a physical entity, probes the manifestation of mental illness, or reckons with how the racialized and gendered body is perceived.”

“BLR is open to many modes and styles of work; it has no house style except humanity (though excellent editing doesn't hurt either).”

• Skip to main content
• Keyboard shortcuts for audio player

• LISTEN & FOLLOW
• Apple Podcasts
• Amazon Music

Your support helps make our show possible and unlocks access to our sponsor-free feed.

Why a literary magazine at the nation's oldest public hospital matters more than ever

A laboratory in New York City's Bellevue Medical Center on May 17, 1949. Gottscho-Schleisner Collection, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division hide caption

Manhattan's Bellevue Hospital has hosted many luminaries of the arts and letters over the years ... as patients in its famous psychiatric ward, and in its morgue. Norman Mailer, Edie Sedgewick, Eugene O'Neil, Charlie Parker, Charles Mingus, Dizzy Gillespie — all spent time at Bellevue, says Dr. Danielle Ofri , who co-founded the Bellevue Literary Review 20 years ago this fall.

Ofri believed it was important to start a literary magazine at the country's oldest public hospital because storytelling, she says, is an undervalued aspect to her profession. While working with medical students, she noticed their patient write-ups all sounded alike.

Shots - Health News

Opinion: doctors should be more candid with their patients.

"This is a 57-year-old white female with a past medical history of coronary disease, blah blah blah — and I really had to tell them to drop the jargon, and ask the patient, ' What was it lik e when your doctor told you you had congestive heart failure?' " she explains.

Ofri encouraged her students to see taking patients' histories and physicals as an opportunity to connect, rather than as boring paperwork.

"And it was amazing the things that we learned," she says. "For example, there was a patient who had both osteoporosis and osteoarthritis but didn't really know they were two different things. And not until the student began talking to her about it did she realize they were two different illnesses."

Health care workers' writing during the pandemic warrants special attention

The culture at Bellevue lends itself to experimentation, Ofri says; she started there as a young doctor during the AIDS epidemic in the 1980s.

"My co-editor, Jerome Lowenstein was a nephrologist; he was the non-fiction editor," she remembered in a recent interview with NPR. "And then, we recruited Ronna Wineberg as fiction editor and two poets for poetry editor, but the submissions were from all walks of life! Medical folks were only a small percentage."

Ofri has also written more than half a dozen books intended for general audiences; her latest, When We Do Harm: A Doctor Confronts Medical Error , just came out in paperback.

Health workers know what good care is. Pandemic burnout is getting in the way

Last year, she treated patients in Bellevue's COVID-19 tents.

The Bellevue Literary Review saw a spike in submissions during the pandemic, Ofri says. Editors in 2020 received more than 4,000 poems, essays and stories. The ones from health care workers especially need to be tended to, Ofri notes. We need to listen to our health care workers, she says, in order to help them heal.

Entire issues of the BLR have been dedicated to themes such as COVID, family, and medicine and racism. The next one will focus on recovery.

Literature can examine how bodily health and societal health are connected

Ofri says that literature and medicine share certain critical qualities: Observation. Precision. Empathy.

"You can go to the doctor and have your illness cured. That's different from being healed," she says. "And plenty of patients, I think, leave our offices, leave our hospitals, and their illness is cured. But we don't feel healed."

Since Ofri helped start it, the Bellevue Literary Review has fostered the careers of writers who have become legitimately famous, including Leslie Jamison ( The Recovering ) and Celeste Ng ( Little Fires Everywhere ).

Saleem Hue Penny reads his prize-wining poem, "Never the Less" from BLR Issue 40 and speaks with BLR Poetry Editor Sarah Sala.

The magazine published Ng's short story "Girls at Play," which won a 2012 Pushcart Prize, soon after the author graduated from the University of Michigan's MFA program. "I liked the idea that a hospital that was so well known for helping people understand themselves better, come to terms with who they were, was also putting out a literary journal," Ng tells NPR.

The fractures — the ill health, if you will — of our society can be examined almost clinically by literature, she says.

Author Interviews

A mother and daughter upset the suburban status quo in 'little fires everywhere'.

"Our health and our mental health and our societal health are all really connected to each other," Ng observes, adding that a literary journal that comes out of a hospital thinks about these things together. "It is a way that we're thinking about what we're thinking, what our health is, bodily speaking and then also how we connect with each other, how we function as a society, how we relate to each other as human beings."

• Danielle Ofri

• United States
• State & Local

Enjoy a free trial on us P.when("A", "a-expander", "ready").execute(function(A, expander) { A.on("a:accordion:buybox-accordion:select", function(data) { // Change active accordion pricing to APEX pricing A.$("#buyBoxAccordion").find(".accordion-header div#adbl_bb_price") .removeClass("adbl_bb_price_show").addClass("adbl_bb_price_hide"); A.$(data.selectedRow.$row).find(".accordion-header div#adbl_bb_price") .removeClass("adbl_bb_price_hide").addClass("adbl_bb_price_show"); //initialize accordion expander expander.initializeExpanders(); }); }); /* Display price in a table block so it does not overflow, ref: https://t.corp.amazon.com/D76383263 */ #adbl_bb_price { display: table; } /* APEX Pricing for Mobile & MobileApp */ .adbl_bb_price_show .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 36px; font-weight: 300; } .adbl_bb_price_hide .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 300; } .adbl_bb_pay_price { font-weight: 400; } .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-whole { font-size: 38px; } .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-whole { font-size: 24px; } .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: table-caption; font-size: 15px !important; line-height: 26px; } .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: table-caption; font-size: 13px !important; line-height: 10px; } #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; top: -15px !important; } #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; } #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; top: -15px !important; } #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; } /* APEX Pricing for Desktop */ #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 300; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 21px; font-weight: 300; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_pay_price { font-weight: 400; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-whole { font-size: 28px; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-whole { font-size: 21px; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block; font-size: 13px !important; line-height: 16px; top:-10px !important; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block; font-size: 12px !important; line-height: 9px; } $0.00 $ 0 . 00

• Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
• One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
• You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
• $14.95 $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.

Buy P.when("A", "a-expander", "ready").execute(function(A, expander) { A.on("a:accordion:buybox-accordion:select", function(data) { // Change active accordion pricing to APEX pricing A.$("#buyBoxAccordion").find(".accordion-header div#adbl_bb_price") .removeClass("adbl_bb_price_show").addClass("adbl_bb_price_hide"); A.$(data.selectedRow.$row).find(".accordion-header div#adbl_bb_price") .removeClass("adbl_bb_price_hide").addClass("adbl_bb_price_show"); //initialize accordion expander expander.initializeExpanders(); }); }); /* Display price in a table block so it does not overflow, ref: https://t.corp.amazon.com/D76383263 */ #adbl_bb_price { display: table; } /* APEX Pricing for Mobile & MobileApp */ .adbl_bb_price_show .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 36px; font-weight: 300; } .adbl_bb_price_hide .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 300; } .adbl_bb_pay_price { font-weight: 400; } .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-whole { font-size: 38px; } .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-whole { font-size: 24px; } .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: table-caption; font-size: 15px !important; line-height: 26px; } .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: table-caption; font-size: 13px !important; line-height: 10px; } #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; top: -15px !important; } #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, #mobile_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; } #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; top: -15px !important; } #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, #mobileapp_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block !important; } /* APEX Pricing for Desktop */ #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 24px; font-weight: 300; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .adbl_bb_savings_percent { color: #CC0C39; font-size: 21px; font-weight: 300; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_pay_price { font-weight: 400; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-whole { font-size: 28px; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-whole { font-size: 21px; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-symbol, #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_show .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block; font-size: 13px !important; line-height: 16px; top:-10px !important; } #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-symbol, #desktop_buybox .adbl_bb_price_hide .a-price-fraction { display: inline-block; font-size: 12px !important; line-height: 9px; } -12% $17.72 $ 17 . 72

Sorry, there was a problem., image unavailable.

• To view this video download Flash Player

Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

From a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian comes a riveting history of New York's iconic public hospital that charts the turbulent rise of American medicine.

Bellevue Hospital, on New York City's East Side, occupies a colorful and horrifying place in the public imagination: a den of mangled crime victims, vicious psychopaths, assorted derelicts, lunatics, and exotic-disease sufferers. In its two and a half centuries of service, there was hardly an epidemic or social catastrophe - or groundbreaking scientific advance - that did not touch Bellevue.

David Oshinsky, whose last book, Polio: An American Story , was awarded a Pulitzer Prize, chronicles the history of America's oldest hospital and in so doing also charts the rise of New York to the nation's preeminent city, the path of American medicine from butchery and quackery to a professional and scientific endeavor, and the growth of a civic institution. From its origins in 1738 as an almshouse and pesthouse, Bellevue today is a revered public hospital bringing first-class care to anyone in need. With its diverse, ailing, and unprotesting patient population, the hospital was a natural laboratory for the nation's first clinical research. It treated tens of thousands of Civil War soldiers, launched the first civilian ambulance corps and the first nursing school for women, pioneered medical photography and psychiatric treatment, and spurred New York City to establish the country's first official board of health.

As medical technology advanced, "voluntary" hospitals began to seek out patients willing to pay for their care. For charity cases it was left to Bellevue to fill the void. The latter decades of the 20th century brought rampant crime, drug addiction, and homelessness to the nation's struggling cities - problems that called a public hospital's very survival into question. It took the AIDS crisis to cement Bellevue's enduring place as New York's ultimate safety net, the iconic hospital of last resort.

Lively, pause-resisting, fascinating, Bellevue is essential American history.

• Listening Length 14 hours and 41 minutes
• Author David Oshinsky
• Narrator Fred Sanders
• Audible release date November 15, 2016
• Language English
• Publisher Random House Audio
• ASIN B01M22JWKP
• Version Unabridged
• Program Type Audiobook
• See all details

Read & Listen

People who viewed this also viewed.

People who bought this also bought

Related to this topic

Product details

Customer reviews

• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 5 star 73% 20% 5% 1% 1% 73%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 4 star 73% 20% 5% 1% 1% 20%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 3 star 73% 20% 5% 1% 1% 5%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 2 star 73% 20% 5% 1% 1% 1%
• 5 star 4 star 3 star 2 star 1 star 1 star 73% 20% 5% 1% 1% 1%

Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.

To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.

Customers say

Customers find the book fascinating, enjoyable, and excellent historical reading. They also find the information very informative, well-researched, and profound. Readers mention the book is filled with history and well-documented timelines. They describe the writing quality as well-written, concise, and light enough to engage.

AI-generated from the text of customer reviews

Customers find the book fascinating, enjoyable, and excellent historical reading for everyone. They say it keeps their interest throughout, is entertaining, and a real page-turner. Readers also mention the book is focused and clear.

"...I never fully understood the full history of Bellevue! So impressive ! Enjoyed it immensely! Highly recommend to any history lover!" Read more

"...of the English medical profession was quite eye-opening and, actually entertaining ...." Read more

"...I found the book focused and clear and accurate...." Read more

"...The book is very well written, well researched and an overall pleasure to read ...." Read more

Customers find the book very informative, well-written, and well-researched. They say it provides context on its importance and is a profound learning experience. Readers also appreciate the concise, riveting descriptions of the development of the public. Overall, they say the book broadens their ways of thinking in many different ways.

" So educational ! I never fully understood the full history of Bellevue! So impressive! Enjoyed it immensely! Highly recommend to any history lover!" Read more

"...His description of the English medical profession was quite eye-opening and, actually entertaining...." Read more

"...The book is very well written, well researched and an overall pleasure to read...." Read more

"This is a really fascinating book. It illuminates so many parts of our country's history while detailing how medicine and public health have evolved..." Read more

Customers find the book filled with history and information about NYC. They also say it's well-documented timeline of not only Bellevue Hospital.

"I HAVE BEEN A NURSE AT Bellevue from 71-84, I enjoyed the historical review . I found the book focused and clear and accurate...." Read more

"This is a great history — not only of America’s largest hospital, but of American medicine in general...." Read more

"I like history. I liked this book because it touched on various historical elements ...." Read more

"I have been recommending this book to everyone! This is a great history of not only Bellevue Hospital, but also of Medicine and New York City...." Read more

Customers find the writing quality of the book very well-written, concise, riveting, and easy to read. They say the writing is light enough to engage and each chapter is well-focused. Readers also appreciate the outstanding presentation not only of the institution, but also of the historical aspects. They describe the book as stunning, captivating, and illuminating.

"...The book is very well written , well researched and an overall pleasure to read...." Read more

"Loaded with fascinating information and written to perfection , this book is awesome...." Read more

"...Generally the writing moves along well, the language is well translated for those who are not familiar with medspeak and while occasionally graphic..." Read more

"A very well written and researched book that starts from the birth of Bellevue Hospital in the XIX century to almost our days...." Read more

Customers have mixed opinions about the pacing of the book. Some mention it's fast-paced and full of characters, while others say it'll be too slow and boring.

"...The reader will find this book an enjoyable read that moves along quickly ...." Read more

"Love the story. Love the progress . Some a little tedious, but worth it. Some a little back and forth confusing, but worth it...." Read more

"...My only less than stellar comment is that purely historical sections are somewhat slow and boring...." Read more

"...Oshinsky picked a great topic and the book moves fast ...." Read more

• Sort reviews by Top reviews Most recent Top reviews

Top reviews from the United States

There was a problem filtering reviews right now. please try again later..

Top reviews from other countries

• About Amazon
• Investor Relations
• Amazon Devices
• Amazon Science
• Sell products on Amazon
• Sell on Amazon Business
• Sell apps on Amazon
• Become an Affiliate
• Advertise Your Products
• Self-Publish with Us
• Host an Amazon Hub
• › See More Make Money with Us
• Amazon Business Card
• Shop with Points
• Reload Your Balance
• Amazon Currency Converter
• Amazon and COVID-19
• Your Account
• Your Orders
• Shipping Rates & Policies
• Returns & Replacements
• Manage Your Content and Devices

• Conditions of Use
• Privacy Notice
• Consumer Health Data Privacy Disclosure
• Your Ads Privacy Choices