Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Year: 2020

  • The importance of the “The David Sign”

    Daniel M. GelfmanThad E. WilsonIndianapolis, Indiana, United States A recent article in JAMA Cardiology titled “The David Sign” discussed the presence of “persistent” external jugular venous distention “hiding in plain sight” on one of the world’s most famous statues: Michelangelo’s David, completed in 15041 (Figure 1). David is shown just before his fight with the…

  • Richard J. Bing: Reflecting on a century of creativity and innovation

    Joseph BurnsYehuda ShapirNew Hyde Park, New York, United States As the tenth anniversary of the passing of Dr. Richard J. Bing approaches, the occasion offers an opportune moment to reflect on the life and momentous achievements of an eminent cardiologist. Richard J. Bing was born in Nuremberg, Germany on October 12, 1909.1 His father was…

  • COVID time

    Norelle Lickiss Hobart, Tasmania, Australia Who will be the chronicler of this? of how the tower fell, of how the tolling bell sounded the world’s crying.  And how the darkness fell,how deep the night, how barethe city streets, how hardto count and lay the dead.     And how the distanced other ached for touch and how the crowded ones still loved and held…

  • Darling of Panama

    Enrique Chaves-Carballo Kansas City, Kansas, United States Samuel Taylor Darling, widely considered as the foremost American tropical parasitologist and pathologist of his time, was born in Harrison, New Jersey on April 6, 1872. He studied medicine at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Baltimore, graduating in 1903 at the top of his class and…

  • The tortoise and the hare: a pandemic perspective

    Pranita Rao Pune, India “Are you ready to lose again?” smirked the hare, looking down at the tortoise who was warming up for their weekly running challenge. The tortoise spent his days training body and mind to win races against the sporty hare; he was never successful. “I feel different today, my friend,” replied the tortoise…

  • Parkes Weber and his eponyms

    If you spend all your time seeing patients, you are not likely to become famous. Renown and power are more likely to go to the “pretending physicians,”1 the species that can be seen on television, in the newspapers, and among those who spend their lives telling others what to do and how to manage their…

  • Robert Schumann’s hand injury

    James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States The death of the American pianist Leon Fleisher (1928–2020)1 whose brilliant career as a piano soloist was upended in his mid-thirties by the development of a crippling movement disorder affecting his right hand, brings to mind the composer Robert Schumann whose youthful ambition to become a piano virtuoso was…

  • The scourge, the scientist, and the swindle

    Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States “The leprous person who has the disease shall wear torn clothes and let the hair of his head hang loose, and he shall cover his upper lip and cry out, ‘Unclean, unclean.’ He shall remain unclean as long as he has the disease. He is unclean. He shall live…

  • The Yellow Wallpaper: The flawed prescription

    Mahek Khwaja Karachi, Pakistan Charlotte Perkins Gilman wrote her short story The Yellow Wallpaper in nineteenth-century America when gendered norms prevailed in society at large and notably in medicine. In a previous article, “Charlotte Perkins Gilman, apostle of women’s liberation,” (2019) published in Hektoen International, George Dunea speaks at length on how Perkins’ writings are peppered…

  • Remembering Dr. Edmund Pellegrino, physician philosopher

    Dean GianakosLynchburg, Virginia, United States “Get Wisdom.”– Proverbs 4:5 One day in the spring of 1985, I remember jogging past the Kennedy Institute of Ethics at Georgetown University, wondering what went on in there. It was a gorgeous afternoon, dogwoods and cherry blossoms in bloom. Students sprawled on the campus lawns. I was a medical…