Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The Steel Windpipe

  • Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov and morphine

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “During the years of war and revolution it was hard to find a hospital without morphine-addicted patients.”1– Vladimir Gorovoy-Shaltan, physician specialist in addiction medicine Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a Russian physician, novelist, and playwright. He earned his medical degree from the University of Kiev (now Kyiv) in 1916. In 1919 he…

  • THEME

    RUSSIAN LITERATURE Published in October, 2020 H E K T O R A M A   .     THE EDUCATION OF DOCTOR CHEKHOV       Chekhov was neither an academic star, nor a social standout. There were, however, two areas in which he excelled. The first was his ability to listen to patients…

  • Suffering and empathy in the stories of Anton Chekhov and their relevance to healthcare today

    Peter McCann London Anton Chekhov (1860-1904)   Throughout his life, Anton Chekhov was often faced with the reality of suffering in human existence. His family’s bankruptcy and life of poverty in Moscow influenced young Anton’s thoughts about suffering and degradation in society, and his brief period of medical practice in Moscow provided him with enough…

  • The tracheotomy

    Michelle Paff Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The transformation of a medical student into a physician is depicted in the short story, The Steel Windpipe (1925), by the Russian physician and author, Mikhail Bulgakov. A young practitioner is stationed alone at a rural hospital, and one snowy evening he is approached by a woman with her dying…