Medicine in Translation: Journeys With My Patients

From a doctor on the front lines of medicine, portraits of patients living and dying in the foreign country we call home For fifteen years, Dr. Danielle Ofri has cared for patients at Bellevue, the oldest public hospital in the country and a crossroads for the world’s cultures. Many of her patients have braved language barriers, religious and racial divides, and the emotional and practical difficulties of exile to access quality health care. Ofri offers us moving and vivid portraits of these people: of Juan Moreno, who spent his boyhood working in Puerto Rico’s sugarcane fields to support his family; of Samuel Nwanko, who was attacked with acid by a local Nigerian cult; of Xui-Ping Liang, whose three-week vacation from China turned into a five-year stay after her cancer was discovered. We hear about a young Guatemalan woman who will die without a heart transplant but can’t get one because she’s undocumented, and of a Muslim girl attacked at knifepoint for wearing her veil. Combining personal narrative, reflection, and reporting, Ofri’s stories speak poignantly about the challenges facing immigrants and Americans in the U.S. health-care system. Through Medicine in Translation, we learn about the American way, in sickness and in health.