Learning the vocabulary of medicine (and other foreign languages)
Edward Tabor Bethesda, Maryland, United States Some of the sources of medical vocabulary. Photo by author. Both of my parents were physicians, and their discussions were often medical. One weekend when I was about four years old, I listened to one such conversation at lunch and interrupted to ask, “When I grow up, will […]
Not just for the sake of ourselves
Florence Gelo Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney, 1806, Benjamin West, Woodmere Art Museum, Bequest of Charles Knox Smith The Fatal Wounding of Sir Philip Sidney is a painting that I have used often to teach close looking to medical and theological students. The painting is full of details: […]
India’s oldest medical schools
Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, United Kingdom Fig 1. Medical College of Kolkata. Photo by Dwaipayanc on Wikimedia. Public domain. 15 August 2022 marked the 75th anniversary of Indian independence from British rule. Since independence, the Indian medical diaspora has successfully settled in countries around the world and contributed greatly to their health care systems. […]
Movie review: Première Année (The Freshmen)
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Never memorize something you can look up.” – Albert Einstein “If you’re going through hell, keep going.” – Winston Churchill Photo by JESHOOTS.COM on Unsplash. Première Année (literally “First Year”) is a 2018 French film. In it, we meet and follow two young men in their first year of […]
Ragging
P. Ravi Shankar Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia Photo by Nathan Wright on Unsplash. The corridor was long, narrow, and brightly painted. The carpet was torn in a few places and the red wall paint was beginning to peel off. Sixteen of us walked through the corridor into the restaurant. The food was tasty, but we […]
Grand rounds
André Brouillet illustration of “Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière.” In the days when medical teaching took place mainly at the bedside, grand rounds were the accepted method by which rare or interesting cases were demonstrated to the entire hospital staff. It was a tradition that went back at least to the days of the […]
The “Ne-Uro” mess
Nishitha Bujala Hyderabad, Telangana, India Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash When I took my oral exams in the final year of medical school, I was tested on surgical instruments by an external professor. He appeared to be in his sixties and stern. As a conversation starter, he asked my favorite specialty. “Neurology,” I […]
The good, the bad, and the regrettable
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “Man . . . cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.” — Frederick Nietzsche Lab coat and scrubs. Photo by Samir. 2006. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. What follows is a description of different aspects of […]
Novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital in 1964
Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe Dundee, Scotland, United Kingdom Fig 1. “Entrance into that most noble Public Charity and admirable Medical Establishment Guy’s Hospital” Founded 1721 by Thomas Guy it was intended for the incurables rejected by neighboring St. Thomas’s Hospital—the foreground scene shows this restriction had ceased. The building on the east (left), Boland House was […]
The “weak” intern
Htet Khine Reno, Nevada, United States Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash “She is quite weak,” I overheard two senior residents say about one of my co-interns. I tried to tune out the conversation—I did not have enough time or mental capacity to comprehend what being “weak” entailed. I was busy writing notes, answering […]