For Immediate Release

Media Contact:
Fran Gately
Director of Communication
617-333-2970
fgately@curry.edu

Curry College President Kenneth K. Quigley, Jr. is pleased to announce that Danielle Ofri, MD, PhD will receive an Honorary Degree at Curry’s Commencement ceremony in Milton, Massachusetts on Sunday, May 15, 2005. Curry College will award Dr. Ofri a Doctor of Humane Letters.

Danielle Ofri, MD PhD, is an attending physician in the medical clinic at Bellevue Hospital, and Assistant Professor of Medicine at New York University School of Medicine.  She divides her time between seeing patients, teaching medical students and residents, editing and writing.

Dr. Ofri served as a guest speaker at the Blue Hills Writing Institute at Curry College in 2003 and is scheduled to speak at the 2005 Institute.  Her 2003 appearance at Curry was broadcast on Book TV on C-Span 2.

Dr. Ofri was born in New York City.  She studied physiology as an undergraduate at McGill University in Montreal.  She spent the next decade at New York University Medical Center and Bellevue Hospital for her medical and scientific education.  She obtained her PhD in biochemistry along with her MD, followed by a residency in internal medicine. 

After residency, Dr. Ofri spent nearly two years traveling.  She worked as a free-lance physician in a variety of communities from East Hampton to rural New Mexico.  In between job assignments she spent time in Mexico, Costa Rica, Guatemala and Peru learning Spanish for her eventual return to inner-city medicine.  During her travels she dragged along her laptop, grateful to finally have time to write down the stories that had accumulated during her years at Bellevue. These stories have been published in numerous literary and medical journals, and are collected in her first book, Singular Intimacies: Becoming a Doctor at Bellevue. Dr. Ofri's second book, Incidental Findings: Lessons From My Patients on the Art of Medicine, was published in April 2005 by Beacon Press.

Dr. Ofri's essays and reviews have appeared in the New York Times, New England Journal of Medicine, The Lancet, the Los Angeles Times, and on National Public Radio. Her writings have been included in Best American Essays 2002, and Best American Science Writing 2003. She is the recipient of the Missouri Review Editor's Prize for nonfiction, and the McGovern award by the American Medical Writers Association for "preeminent contributions to medical communication."

Dr. Ofri has a particular interest in the relationship of literature and medicine.  She has introduced a program encouraging medical students to experiment with literary descriptions of patient encounters to help explore the complexities of illness. 

Dr. Ofri is the Editor-in-Chief and co-founder of the Bellevue Literary Review, a literary journal devoted to writings about the human body, illness, health and healing. She is also Associate Chief Editor of the Bellevue Guide to Outpatient Medicine, a textbook of internal medicine published by British Medical Journal Publications. Additionally, she has developed a bilingual collection of educational materials for patients.

Dr. Ofri lives in New York with her husband, two children, and dog. In her free time Dr. Ofri has studied modern dance at the Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance.  She has been seen zipping through Manhattan traffic on her rickety old ten-speed.

For additional information on Commencement including schedule of events and hotel accommodations, please visit the Commencement website