Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: September 2017

  • To my friend with diabetes, on losing her foot

    Anna KanderIowa City, IA, USA You walk sixty-seven years while childhooddiabetes, against your iron will, poisons your peripheralnerves with sugar, and the muscles of your feet, starvedof circulation, gradually dissolve. Your toes gnarl and curl backward at wildangles, as if aspiring to adorn gargoyles. (You’vealways had a dragon-and-knight heart.) Unruly tendonsdraw themselves into bows, aiming…

  • Walt Whitman: A difficult patient

    Jack CoulehanStony Brook, New York, United States On June 15, 1888, the following notice appeared in the New York Times under the headline AGED POET SUFFERS RELAPSE: Prof. William Osler, of the University of Pennsylvania, was summoned by telegraph this afternoon to go to Walt Whitman’s bedside. The aged poet had a relapse, and it…

  • Death and the diaspora

    Amitha KalaichandranOttawa, Ontario, Canada Even though my grandfather, or “Tata” in Tamil, became deaf five years ago, I still felt he could hear me. I believed that the oceans that stood between our homes – mine in Toronto, Canada, and his in Colombo, Sri Lanka – could carry a symphony of both concerns and excitement,…

  • The thousand-year-old rainforest shamanistic tradition of healing touch

    Søren VentegodtCopenhagen, Denmark An interview with the last Aboriginal healer from the Kuku Nungl (Kuku Yalanji) tribe on the sacred art of healing touch in Far North Queensland, Australia. The indigenous people of Australia, the Aboriginals, have an ancient tradition of healing that uses only talk, touch, and other active principles. In contrast to the…

  • Phantom pains

    Daly WalkerBoca Grande, Florida and Quechee, Vermont, United States Most memories pass on to oblivion without changing anything. But some are so powerful they transform who you are. They never leave you. Without my memories of a girl named Jane, I would never have become the doctor I am. On a clear December morning fifty-six…

  • Manga as medical critique

    Adil MenonCleveland, Ohio, United States Stark lines are often drawn in American and European literature between graphic novels, which cater primarily to adults, and comics, which despite their broad appeal are perceived as being meant for younger audiences. No such dichotomy exists within the Japanese medium of manga, an expansive art form with works catering…

  • In a scan, darkly

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Every so often I browse through old patient records and before committing them to the shredder I read through the histories they contain. These visits to the past are useful and edifying, allowing a more detached consideration of the events. Has something changed in medical knowledge since then? Do the diagnosis and…

  • Grand Prix Submission Guidelines

    (Currently closed) We invite you to participate in the Seventh Hektoen Grand Prix Essay Competition. Two prizes will be awarded: $3000 for the winner and $800 for the runner up. Topics might include art, history, literature, education, etc. as they relate to medicine. Essays should be under 1600 words. The deadline is April 15, 2019 at…