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Sometimes Amazing Things Happen

Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward
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Jun 23, 2017Roundcat rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
I read this book as a result of an NPR interview with the author. The book takes us through the interest she developed for medicine after being allowed to view a corpse that was to be used for dissection in a friend's anatomy class. From there she decides that psychiatry is her field of interest. When she does a fellowship in Bellevue Hospital in the ward where the criminally insane are sent from Riker's Island prison to be treated, she develops a need to help these men who keep revolving in the prison system because of their mental problems. We see what her daily routine consists of, as well as the cost of trying to be a mother while dealing with high maintenance patients. The part of the book about rescuing her patients from Hurricane Sandy was particularly exciting. No one wanted to have her patients transferred to their facility. When they finally secured a place for them, they had to get them down from the 19th floor without an elevator. Leaving them there was untenable, because there was no running water, electricity in a limited area from a generator, and supplies had to be walked up nineteen floors. Quite a challenge.