Elizabeth Ford experienced medical school unsure of where she belonged. It wasn’t until she did her psychiatry rotation that she discovered her calling-to look after probably one of the most susceptible populations of psychologically ill people, the inmates of New York City’s jails, including Rikers Isle, who are therefore sick they are sent to the Bellevue Hospital Prison Ward for care.

These men were damaged, without resources or support, and very ill. They may be violent, unpredictable, but they could also be about Occasionally Amazing Issues Happen: Heartbreak and Wish in the Bellevue Hospital Psychiatric Prison Ward funny and tender and needy. Mainly, they were human and they awakened in Ford a boundless empathy. Her individuals made her an excellent doctor and a better person.

While Ford was a psychiatrist at Bellevue she became a wife and a mom. In her publication she shares her problems to balance her personal and professional lives, to care for her kids and her individuals, and to maintain the empathy that is essential to her practice-all when confronted with a complex organization, an exhausting workload, and the deeply psychologically taxing character of her function.

Ford brings humor, grace, and humanity towards the lives of the patients in her treatment and in beautifully rendered prose illuminates the inner workings (and failings) of our mental health and felony justice systems.