Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Month: July 2021

  • Red Beard: A master clinician in nineteenth century Japan

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “One of the essential qualities of the clinician is interest in humanity, for the secret of the care of the patient is in caring for the patient.”—Francis W. Peabody, M.D.1 Red Beard (or Akahige) is a film about an arrogant, inexperienced doctor who learns about caring and compassion from his chief, a…

  • A circle of hip surgery around four continents

    Peter ArnoldSydney, Australia My story begins in Sydney in late January 1980. A businessman in his mid-fifties (Mr. C.) had been on his way to source products in the UK. As his student son was traveling in Italy, he decided to visit him by stopping over in Rome on his way north. When the young…

  • Memories of a West Virginia coal camp

    Calvin KuninColumbus, Ohio, United States This is a brief account of my experience as a physician at a coal mining camp in rural West Virginia. It is based on my memory of events that took place almost seventy years ago but remain vivid in my mind. The adventure began the day I graduated from medical…

  • Felix Mendelssohn, musical prodigy

    Felix Mendelssohn made his musical debut at age nine. Born in Hamburg in 1809, he came from a distinguished German family that moved to Berlin in 1902. His grandfather and father had been successful businessmen who also made it a point to provide their children with an excellent education in the liberal arts. His grandfather…

  • Franz Liszt, best piano player in Europe

    Like Mozart and Mendelssohn, Franz Liszt was a musical prodigy. He played the piano when he was five years old. At eight, he could read difficult music, and two years later he was composing music himself. By age twelve he was ranked one of the best piano players in Europe.1 He was born in 1811…

  • The sweet smell of success

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “You shall nose him . . .”— Hamlet, Act IV, scene III It was July 1977. After having done a rotating internship, I was starting my pediatric residency at the academic children’s hospital. My first rotation was in the outpatient clinic, an old, run-down building a few blocks from the main hospital.…

  • Ángeles Mastretta’s life ripped apart

    Bernardo NgImperial County, California, United States Ángeles Mastretta, born in 1949 in the city of Puebla, Mexico, is a poet, journalist, and author who was brought to fame by her novel Arráncame la vida, which was translated as Tear this heart out, or more literally, “Rip my life apart.” Published in 1985, it became such…

  • Harvey Cushing and pituitary diseases

    JMS PearceHull, England, UK Of the many aspects and contributions of Harvey Williams Cushing (1869-1939) (Fig 1), this sketch concentrates on his identification of a basophilic tumor of the pituitary with adrenal hyperfunction that he called pituitary basophilism1 (Fig 2). It is now known as Cushing’s disease. Symptoms caused by primary adrenal, iatrogenic, and ectopic…

  • Medical and literary coupling

    Stephen FinnSouth Africa (To be read aloud, with gusto and with a strong beat) When you’re so busy in the middle of a ward,Or you’re doing the usual and feeling quite bored,Just think of your fellows who healed the sick,So many doctors, and what’d give them a kick. Denizens of medicine they all certainly were,But…

  • Rural home visit 1973

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States The road frozen and snowflakes fluttering, I travel to a distant farmhouse—the sick in bed on her side, hair in sweat-wet crescents and vomitus on the sheets, the husband wailing, “She’s dying, she’s dying,” and a dog and three toddlers lapping milk from the linoleum—and as I stoop to…