Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Memories

  • Scar

    Michael Loyd Gray Kalamazoo, Michigan   Photo by Min An on Pexels. Alice ran a finger along the scar on his arm and he slowly woke up, his eyes focusing in the dark. She had been watching him sleep. He rolled over to face her. “Can’t you sleep?” she said. “I had a bad dream.”…

  • Mental hospital memories of another era

    Robert Craig Brisbane, Queensland, Australia   The former St. Audry’s Hospital. Photo by Adrian S Pye. CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1964, having obtained a place to study medicine at Cambridge University, I was given the opportunity as a medical student to work as an assistant nurse for three months in a large residential mental hospital…

  • The use of language in health and illness narratives

    Mariella Scerri Victor Grech  Malta   Portrait of Virginia Woolf in 1902. By George Charles Beresford. Public Domain. Via Wikimedia. “While I was as busy as anyone on the sunny plain of life, I heard of you laid aside in the shadowy recess where our sunshine of hope and joy could never penetrate to you.”…

  • Best friends for never

    Ariya Mobaraki Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Three people contemplate the cadaver of Saint Petronilla. Etching by James Basire, 1764, after Giovanni Francesco Barbieri, il Guercino… Credit: Wellcome Collection.  (CC BY 4.0) I stand looking over you, Wishing I could turn back time. Wondering what wisdom you would give me, Back in your prime.  …

  • Alabama and the healing of memories

    Jack Coulehan  Stony Brook, New York, United States   Hospital ward, circa 1969. T.S. Eliot’s poem “Burnt Norton” begins with the famous lines: “Time present and time past / Are both perhaps present in time future, / And time future contained in time past.” 1My memories  are a part of my present experience. I recall…