Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Ukraine

  • Yurii Voronoy, Ukrainian kidney transplant pioneer

    Yurii Yurijevich Voronoy was born in 1896 in a village in the region of Poltava in Ukraine, where his father was a professor of mathematics. In World War I Voronoy was a volunteer corpsman in the Ukrainian contingent, and after the war he studied medicine in Kyiv. He then joined the department of surgery in…

  • Psychopathological aspects of the war in Ukraine

    Sergei Jargin Moscow, Russia   Euromaidan, Kiev, April 2015. Paranoid leaders can remain in positions of great power in nations that lack appropriate checks and balances.1 This is particularly likely in one-party states where mass intimidation and imposed homogeneity of thinking prevail and where everyone conforms with the ruling party. Grave consequences can occur when…

  • To my colleagues in Ukraine whom I saw on TV

    Barry Meisenberg Baltimore, Maryland, United States   Limestone fragments of the “Vulture Stele” now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. A stele is a stone pillar erected as a monument to some great event. This stele was created circa 2500 BC to celebrate the victory of King Eannatum of Lagash over Ush, king of Umma.…

  • Medical tourism

    Kozlova Liudmyla Mykolaiv, Ukraine Doctor with stethoscope and globe in his hand. Photo by Jernej Furman. Via Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Medical tourism is a highly profitable industry that offers a range of medical procedures, highly specialized medical services, and tourism opportunities. It combines travel for health and medical services with recreational tourism. While on…

  • How black turned white

    Kateryna TsoiKharkiv, Ukraine In 1876, the World’s Fair was held outside Europe for the first time, taking place in Philadelphia and coinciding with the centenary of the US Declaration of Independence. Thomas Eakins, not yet a well-known artist, decided to present a large-scale canvas at the exhibition of a subject he knew well. An ardent…

  • Maxwell Finland: expert in infectious diseases

    Martin Duke Mystic, Connecticut, United States   Maxwell Finland in the senior yearbook from the Harvard Class Album 1922. (Credit: HUD 322.04 page 181. Harvard University Archives.) Maxwell Finland (1902-1987) was a remarkable physician, teacher, and researcher in infectious diseases. His life began during the turmoil of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and ended in…

  • Rilke: A poet’s death

    Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain   Figure 1. A portrait of Rilke painted two years after his death by Leonid Pasternak. Via Wikimedia. Public domain. Rose, oh reiner widerspruch, lust, Niemandes schlaf zu sein under soviel lidern Rose, o pure contradiction, desire, to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids. – Rainer Maria Rilke,…

  • Blood at Maidan – Kyiv, Ukraine 2014

    Olena KaguiRhode Island, United States There was no physical blood present when I stepped onto Maidan Square in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yet signs of it were everywhere. Bullet holes pierced the shields and helmets that memorialized the fallen. Flowers, the color of blood, sat inside the cavern of the helmet. The space, once occupied by a…

  • Ivan

    Christopher H. Cameron Kelso, United Kingdom   It was a time in general practice when doctors still visited patients for other than purely medical reasons. Back then, it was easy to forget why or when a particular visit had started or how it had mysteriously evolved into a regular one. “Chronic” was the often vaguely…

  • Lilac hideout

    Lidiia RiabovaCherkasy, Ukraine Klym was lying wounded, shell-shocked on the hot black soil. The reflection of a distant, cold sky and the silent copper sun mirrored in his wide open eyes. Only he had survived the battle. The watch on his wrist was glinting in the sun. Somehow it remained undamaged. It was caked with…