Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Barend Florijn

  • Sleep

    Sophia Wilson New Zealand   Photo by Snapwire on Pexels The fabric of sleep descends like a tired paw, turns off our lights, offers mouth-to-mouth oblivion. For a while we can pretend we’re like stars and that we don’t reside here anymore, between impossible grindstones and the birth-death quandary; We drift weightless as falling leaves,…

  • Suffocating in the bell jar: The euthanasia request by the unbearably suffering, depressed patient

    Barend FlorijnAd KapteinThe Netherlands   Photography by thekirbster Introduction The Dutch Euthanasia Act took effect in the Netherlands in 2002. Since then the official euthanasia number of patients with a mental disorder has risen from 13 in 2011 to 42 patients in 2013.1 This Act regulates the ending of one’s life by a physician at the…