Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: overdose

  • The flower lady

    Jonathan B. Ferrini La Jolla, California, United States   Photos by author. The Flores Family Flower Shop was founded by my grandfather as a roadside stand. It has now been a favorite flower shop in San Diego for the past fifty years. Six days a week at 4:30 in the morning, I drive the truck…

  • A wider science

    Ahmad Shakeri Howsikan Kugathasan Toronto, Ontario, Canada   Storytelling helps healthcare workers learn about the person, not just the patient. Once Upon a Time, by George Hodan. Source Working at a Toronto harm reduction clinic helped reconcile my different points of view on drug addiction. In the classroom, I was a progressive-minded graduate student willing to…

  • Reflections on the practice of treatment for drug dependence

    Carla Treloar Australia   Photography by Christina B. Castro The funeral was on a stifling January day in Sydney. The formal, stiff clothes I had put on that morning were damp and limp within minutes outside the air-conditioned car. I greeted the few people I knew who were milling outside the chapel awaiting the arrival…

  • A difficult conversation

    Ajanta NaiduIrvine, California, United States Fifteen years old, Jane sat in the exam room innocently denying that large doses of insulin were causing her severely low blood sugars. Living with type 1 diabetes, she had been prescribed daily insulin injections, which she herself administered at meals. Though she denied injecting more than the prescribed amount,…