Month: May 2021
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Morris Fishbein, MD—foe of four-flushers, flimflammers, and fakes
Laura KingAtlanta, Georgia, United States Born in St. Louis, Missouri, on July 22, 1889, and raised in Indianapolis, Morris Fishbein emerged from his humble origins as the second eldest of eight children born to a Jewish immigrant tin peddler (Benjamin Fishbein) and his wife (Fannie Fishbein) to become the preeminent physician of his generation. After…
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Viktor Frankl: The meaning of a life
Anne JacobsonOak Park, Illinois, United States Not long before the Dachau concentration camp was liberated in April 1945, Viktor Emil Frankl was seriously ill with typhus and writing feverishly on stolen scraps of paper, determined to keep himself and his ideas alive. Faced with the prospect of his own death and helpless as a physician…
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The patient who provided his own placebo and fully recovered
Lawrence ClimoLincoln, Massachusetts, United States My elderly patient began his treatment by complaining about how his mother had behaved towards him in his boyhood. She had hurt him with her name-calling and humiliating insults, and these had apparently resulted in a lifetime of a negativism towards her. He wanted my help to end that negativity.…
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Tutorial for surgeons by Lawrence Peter Berra
Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Since the turn of this century, and more so over the past decade, surgeons at various stages of their careers have been dissatisfied with their work and the surgical lifestyle. The main reason for their dissatisfaction seems to be an ever-increasing burden of administrative work, leaving them with little time…
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Early lessons
Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden Finally, it was my first day in a US hospital after studying medicine in Europe for five and a half years. A medical education at the very old and renowned Belgian university at which I studied lasted seven years. The school let its foreign students return to their home countries for the…
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St. Audrey Etheldrida
JMS PearceHull, England, UK Medicine is full of strange tales, some with unforeseen ramifications. I recently discovered that the origins of the useful word “tawdry” surprisingly lay in a tumor of the throat—nature unspecified—of a seventh-century saint. St. Audrey, Etheldrida, or Æþelðryþ, born c. 636 AD, was an English princess generally referred to as Audrey,…
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Parental grief
Ellen ZhangBoston, Massachusetts, United States We didn’t know the ending because this was usback then. Sometimes wanting is not enough.When the oncologist spoke. While you startedto cry only because your mother did. As we cradledyou gently. Beyond the singularity of such moments. There is a universal grieving for parents losing a child.All things lead to…
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Bristol Children’s Hospital and esophageal atresia
Richard SpicerBristol, United Kingdom Bristol Children’s Hospital The Children’s Hospital in Bristol began as the Free Institution for Diseases of Women and Children in 1857. In 1885 it moved to a purpose-built neo-Gothic building (Fig.1) and continued to treat women and children on the same site until 1940 when bomb damage caused by the Luftwaffe…