Sheri Fink

Sheri Fink

Sheri Fink (Sheri Lee Fink) was born in Detroit, MI, USA. Fink attended the University of Michigan where she received a Bachelor of Science degree in psychology and Stanford University where she received an M.D. and a Ph.D.

Sheri Fink is a renowned television producer and journalist known for her insightful reporting on healthcare and crises.

Fink has reported across the world as she covered everything from the West African Ebola outbreak and documented the COVID-19 pandemic. For her investigative work with ProPublica and The New York Times, she won multiple Pulitzer Prizes.

She is also the producer and creator of Pandemic: How to Prevent an Outbreak, the documentary. Fink also worked on Five Days at Memorial, which she was highly involved in bringing to TV.

Besides her work as a producer and writer, she has worked in conflict and disaster zones as a relief worker. Dr. Sheri Fink has given lectures on the responsibilities of journalists during crises, medical ethics, and emergency preparedness.

In her storytelling, Sheri Fink combines human experience with factual detail, as she captures how emotion, ethics and science come together when lives are on the line.

Through her films, books, and journalism, she has become one of the most prominent voices on the medical and moral challenges that arise in times of disaster.

In her debut work, War Hospital, Sheri Fink tells a story set in 1992. It is here that several young doctors find themselves trapped in Srebrenica, Bosnia.

With few supplies and no surgeons, saving lives is difficult. Fink follows a Serb doctor who is with the opposing forces, a Bosnian physician working with civilians, and a Doctors Without Borders volunteer.

Through research and interviews, Fink looks at their moral struggles such as how to stay true to their oaths in a combat zone, how to choose who dies or lives and how humanitarian aid sometimes makes things worse rather than making them better.

A decade later, Sheri Fink published the work Five Days at Memorial in which she looked back on Hurricane Katrina, and particularly the events at a New Orleans hospital.

When Katrina hit, temperatures rose, flooding cut power, and caregivers had to make impossible choices about the welfare of their patients. Many would be accused of euthanizing patients with drugs.

Based on more than half a dozen years of reporting, Fink reconstructs the human struggles, moral dilemmas, and chaos inside the hospital.

She also exposes the deep flaws of the American government in disaster preparation, even as she explores how ethics, fear, and compassion collide in uncertain times.

Sheri Fink: Awards & Accolades

Fink's book, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital won the BookBrowse Awards, Best Nonfiction Book, in 2013.

Fink's book, Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital was nominated for the Goodreads Awards, Best Nonfiction, in 2013.

Sheri Fink: Lists & Other Mentions

• Five Days at Memorial: Life and Death in a Storm-Ravaged Hospital was a GQ: The 50 Best Books of Literary Journalism Selection in 2021.

Related Authors

Fans of Sheri Fink also enjoy these authors:

1. Jane Harper, author of the Aaron Falk Series.
2. Ruth Ware, author of the Lo Blacklock Series.
3. Stephen King, author of The Dark Tower Series.
4. Lisa Unger, author of: Confessions on the 7:45.
5. Paula Hawkins, author of: The Girl on the Train.

Sheri Fink: F.A.Q