Bellevue: Three Centuries of Medicine and Mayhem at America's Most Storied Hospital Hardcover – November 15, 2016

I started this book in March 2020 as the COVID19 pandemic was ravaging New York City's population and its hospitals. As a child growing up in Philadelphia, Bellevue Hospital always held a certain, almost morbid, fascination. For me it was America's version of London's "Bedlam" - a dark, scary place where poor, wretched people were herded together and treated little better than animals. When I moved to New York, our first apartment on the East River looked north to......Bellevue ! At the start of the great blackout of July 1977, we watched the lights of New York go out one-by-one like falling dominoes - starting with the Queenborough Bridge, cascading to that last building - Bellevue. All of this flooded back as I started to read David Oshinsky's book. My childhood memories were not far off the mark, as Oshinsky vividly recounts in describing Bellevue's early days - conditions were indeed barbaric. A poor worker, falling ill, was fodder for all manner of gruesome treatments. Doctors fashioned themselves after their London counterparts who, surprisingly, were often unschooled and poorly trained. His description of the English medical profession was quite eye-opening and, actually entertaining. The book provides fascinating information about how the New York medical ecosystem evolved. New York Hospital positioned itself early on as the hospital of choice for the wealthy. And the great New York hospitals of today came into being because of discrimination against various ethnic minorities. The Sisters of Charity founded a hospital in Greenwich Village to help poor Irish Catholic immigrants. The German community created a hospital farther north and the Jewish community ever farther north. Today we know these hospitals as St. Vincent's (sadly closed), Lenox Hill and Mt. Sinai. And yet poor Bellevue, tested by all of the cataclysms of the 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, and remaining a public hospital open to all, emerges as a beacon for medical excellence in the United States. This book is a fitting tribute to a great hospital. Reading it in the midst of the COVID19 pandemic and watching daily scenes of courageous medical workers at all of New York's hospitals work so hard to save lives, we can only be thankful to be living in a city with such glorious institutions.

As a nurse I’ve moved around a lot and worked at many hospitals.Dr. Oshinsky summed up how I felt about working at County. Many of the hospitals I worked are famous, but I never felt as useful and satisfied as I did after each shift at Cook County and I have never worked with better professionals . Thank you for a wonderful read

I'd always associated Bellevue with an insane asylum, but apparently I got that idea from movies and stand-up comedians. Today, only 1/3 of Bellevue patients receive psychiatric treatment, and those with severe cases are sent elsewhere.Bellevue began as a mansion that was converted to an almshouse and more famously as the go-to hospital for yellow fever patients. Later it became the haven for any patient who couldn't afford medical care, and it still is.Bellevue should also receive credit for many medical innovations, including the horse and buggy ambulance, forensic medicine and pathology.They took the tough cases. New York City was the center of the AIDS epidemic, and Bellevue took most of them before there was any kind of treatment.They were ready for Ebola victims before they even got one; when they did, he was a doctor, and they saved his life. Bellevue was there when Sandy struck, and a retaining wall collapsed, flooding its basement, where gasoline was stored to fuel its back-up generators on the thirteenth floor. Nurses, orderlies and doctors hauled gasoline up the stairs to keep the generators operating until the hospital could be evacuated. All thirty-seven elevators were down. Once more doctors, nurses, police men, firemen and the national guard spent a day and a night removing 700 patients to safety. Nobody died.So . . . where does the insane asylum myth come from? That would be from Nellie Bly who wrote a series on Bellevue for Joseph Pulitzer's WORLD. She later wrote a book about her experience, TEN DAYS IN A MAD HOUSE, most of which occurred on Blackwell's Island where the serious cases were sent. She did see some seedy looking characters at Bellevue, but that's because they almost never turn anyone away.Bellevue has also gotten some bad press at times. A doctor was murdered there. She was killed by a man who'd been living in a janitor's closet for several days. Another man had been living in the basement for two weeks. Yes, Bellevue was a haven for the homeless at times. It was the only place they could go. But security was seriously stepped up after the murder.Bellevue has also been the go-to place for medical students to get practical experience. For years they had a mutual relationship with Colgate, Columbia, and NYU medical schools. There was almost no disease they wouldn't be exposed to at Bellevue, and the hospital never went begging for applicants.As the Sandy episode shows, these people are heroes, and the American public doesn't even know it. New York City government is also heroic. Through the years, they've spent millions keeping the hospital for the destitute open. Those governments include republican, democratic, even Tammany Hall, but they all agreed that Bellevue was a necessity, a shining beacon signifying that we have a responsibility to treat the less fortunate.

Really interesting book particularly if you are a med student or doctor... Fascinating to see how hospitals were run long ago. Definitely worthy of a read.

Very good book. It really is a social history of the United States, covering topics such as immigration, epidemics, natural disasters, class, and women’s rights, told through the lens of Bellevue. The writing style is accessible, although at times a bit repetitive. Highly recommend to anyone with an interest in medicine, nursing or broader social history.

especially if you r in med field and interested in Hx Med / Surgery. Loved it

A fascinating well told history of Bellevue and medicine. Maybe not an totally easy read, but definitely absorbing-- not the least bit dry. I would recommend this to anyone who loves history, has an interest in medicine, and especially those, who when they hear "Bellevue" it strikes a chord.

Good read