Merced Danielle Ofri Summary

In “Merced”, Danielle Ofri recounts her experiences as she completes her residency at Bellevue. At the start of her narration, a patient named Mercedes walks in to Bellevue to inquire about her serious headache. The ER doctors are confused by her condition as it appears to have no name. Ofri who believes she is ‘elite’ affirms that Mercede’s condition is aseptic meningitis and has an air of laxness as she sends Mercedes home with mild medication. Subsequently, Ofri decides to send in a vial of Mercede’s spinal fluid to be tested for Lyme disease and other diseases. She wants to be able to brag about the rare tests she has performed. As Mercedes returns the following day with more severe symptoms, Ofri determines that perhaps her former prediction had been incorrect. She then

She was so full of herself. I kept mentally asking her “What if you’re wrong?” What got to me the most was the supercilious manner in which she belittled the other doctors. She seemed nonchalant of the patient. She didn’t take anything seriously because she thought she was so smart. The ER guys at the beginning knew something was eccentric about Mercedes’ case and even though they were not well acquainted with her malady they took the matter seriously. Ofri on the other hand called them “ridiculous” instead of being discreet. She did everything by the book. She cancelled an order that the ER doctors made because she “knew alot more medicine than those ER guys”. I noticed that there was a lot of dramatic irony in her story. As I read the story the second time I immediately noticed the irony when Ofri said “Mercedes was lucky to have come to an academic medical center rather than to a community hospital, where her diagnosis would have been missed entirely”. Interestingly enough, Mercedes diagnosis had been missed entirely! Was she lucky now? This statement that Ofri made illustrated the level of her