Esther Bubley developed a specialty in stories about health care and mental health. She recorded such dramatic events as open heart surgery, an emergency tracheotomy, state-of-the-art cancer treatments, and severly disturbed mental patients. Some of these stories were commissioned by the hospitals or drug companies, some were commissioned by magazines, and occasionally Bubley pursued a story with a more personal connection, as when she photographed surgery being performed on the infant daughter of her closest friend.