Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Covid-19

  • Inscrutable malice: Ode to a virus

    Barry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States A mere 29 proteins, it punishes the world with an inscrutable malice.Be it another’s agent or a principal, a nefarious actor,it infects, inflames and thromboses according to its nature,Leaving a wake of death, disability, grief, and havoc. But no—not an actor at all, for no agency resides in this 29.9…

  • Remembering your COVID birth

    Laura Kahn Chicago, IL   Artwork by Jill Littlewood and Morgan Kinney based on photo by author. The thing about having your first baby at the beginning of a pandemic is that everything seems equally strange, because you don’t have a prior kid for comparison. I wait anxiously for my son to poop, I wear…

  • A pandemic of emotions: Navigating vaccine hesitancy in a post-pandemic world

    Nidhi Bhaskar Providence, Rhode Island   Photo by CDC on Pexels Four years before the COVID-19 pandemic, I was registering community members at a local health fair. An elderly man in line mentioned that he would never receive a flu shot because his healthy cousin had died of an aneurysm after receiving one. I spoke…

  • Review: The History of the World in 100 Pandemics, Plagues and Epidemics

    Arpan Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom   Cover: The History of the World in 100 pandemics, plagues and epidemics. The publication of this book could not have been better timed. The book sets out to show how pandemics, epidemics, and infectious diseases have shaped human history over the last 5,000 years. Its contents help us place…

  • “An ounce of prevention”: past and present

    Jack E. Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States Donald R. Newcomer Glendale, Arizona, United States   Benjamin Franklin 1706–1790. Writer, publisher, philosopher, postmaster, scientist, diplomat. The Saying “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” is commonly attributed to Franklin. Image credit: Painting by Joseph Duplessis, circa 1785. National Portrait Gallery NPG.87.43. Via…

  • The history of polio and cigarettes, and the need for a COVID-19 vaccine mandate

    Daniel Gelfman Indianapolis, Indiana, United States   Polio Vaccine and Fundraising Matchbook. Photograph at the Science History Institute, Philadelphia. Photo Credit: Daniel Gelfman, July 3, 2021. Depicted in this display (Picture 1) at the Science History Institute in Philadelphia are technologic marvels. The first is a box that contained early vials of Dr. Salk’s formalin…

  • The year gross anatomy faced the scalpel

    Michael Denham New York, New York, United States   An instructor uses Complete Anatomy, a virtual anatomy software, to illustrate sections of the chest. By Michael Denham. As the COVID-19 pandemic emerged in early 2020, anatomy departments across the United States struggled to develop contingency plans to continue training the country’s future physicians. Would this…

  • The Call of the Wild and COVID-19

    Liam Butchart Stony Brook, New York, United States Samantha Rizzo Washington DC, United States   Winter Scene in Moonlight. Henry Farrer. 1869. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.  The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought a terrible toll upon all of us and has brought the medical system—and the providers who inhabit it—to its knees. There is a…

  • The wonderful world of vaccines

    Jayant Radhakrishnan Chicago, Illinois, United States   A patient with his whole body covered with smallpox lesions. Source: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, photo by Barbara Rice. Epidemics and pandemics became an issue about 10,000 years ago when hunters and gatherers became farmers and began to live in communities. Smallpox was one of the first…

  • Covid cascade killed my father

    Helen Meldrum Waltham, Maine, United States   Photo by Craig Whitehead on Unsplash My father died last year from what I call “Covid cascade,” a series of unforeseen consequences that ensue when Covid-19 breaks out in a healthcare facility. My father did not have the virus at the time he died—in fact, he tested negative…