Sometimes Amazing Things Happen

Heartbreak and Hope on the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward

By: Elizabeth Ford MD

Narrated by: Bernadette Dunne

Elizabeth Ford went through medical school unsure of where she belonged. It wasn't until she did her psychiatry rotation that she found her calling - to care for one of the most vulnerable populations of mentally ill people, the inmates of New York City's jails, including Rikers Island, who are so sick that they are sent to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward for care.

These men were broken, without resources or support, and very ill. They could be violent, unpredictable, but they could also be funny and tender and needy. Mostly, they were human and they awakened in Ford a boundless empathy. Her patients made her a great doctor and a better person. While Ford was a psychiatrist at Bellevue she became a wife and a mother. In her book she shares her struggles to balance her personal and professional lives, to care for her children and her patients, and to maintain the empathy that is essential to her practice - all in the face of a complex institution, an exhausting workload, and the deeply emotionally taxing nature of her work. Ford brings humor, grace, and humanity to the lives of the patients in her care and in beautifully rendered prose illuminates the inner workings (and failings) of our mental health and criminal justice systems.

©2017 Elizabeth Ford (P)2017 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

amazing book!!

loved this book!!! Very interesting insight to a growing problem in America. I wish I knew this woman.

Quite revealing...

I enjoyed this realistic story about the famous Bellevue psychiatric area. Having a medical background, but not much psych experience, I found it revealing about some of the truly psychiatric ill people who are her patients in these stories. Many are quite damaged from childhood, and it tugged at my heart to hear their stories, and accounts of having to leave reality to cope with their lives.
Dr Ford becomes truly immersed in her patients’ treatments, and she represents the best of what modern healthcare can deliver.
The ending is bittersweet- it would be a spoiler to reveal it...... but listen to this- you will not be disappointed.
The narrator was excellent: I did not realize until almost the end of the book that Dr Ford was not the narrator; Ms Dunne puts that much emotion into her reading.

An interesting insight into the world of a psychiatrist working with inmates with mental illness

Interesting, realistic view / perspective of the work of mental health professionals within the criminal justice system.

Extraordinary

This is exceptional reading...true to life, and stimulates discussion of psychiatric illness, treatment, and the people who choose to labor in the field. Excellent.

Inspiring!!!

Everyone who works with mentally ill patients should read this book ❤️ Dr. Ford shares how love, hope, compassion, and respect help those who society treats as outcasts and dangerous. Most of them don’t need punishment, they need help.