Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Education

  • Engage the emotions

    Florence Gelo Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio (1571-1610). The Taking of Christ, 1602 Oil on canvas. 135.5 x 169.5 cm L.14702. On indefinite loan to the National Gallery of Ireland from the Jesuit Community, Leeson St., Dublin, who acknowledge the kind generosity of the late Dr Marie Lea-Wilson, 1992 Photo ©…

  • Certifying clinical competence: principles from the caliphate of al-Muqtadir

    Faraze Niazi Jack Riggs Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   Dinar of al-Muqtadir. Dated 910/911. Credit: Classical Numismatic Group, Inc. CC BY-SA 2.5 “The devil is always in the details.” “Be careful what you wish for, you just might get it.” –Two Old Wise Sayings   Certifying clinical competence has virtually universal support. After all,…

  • Are we culturally tone-deaf?

    Clara Koo New York, United States   Hahoe Folk Village Mask Dance. Ian Sewell. July 2008. Accessed via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 2.5 The cultural norms of American medicine are speciously like those of traditional Korean culture, but the differences place Korean-American students at a disadvantage. When I began my third year of medical school, a…

  • From here

    Rasa Rafie Colorado, United States   Copies after Illustrations of Statues and Paintings (recto); Measurements for a Man’s Skeleton (verso). After Gerard de Lairesse. N.d. The Art Institute of Chicago. Public Domain. In college, we were the top of our class, the winners of scholarships and awards, the leaders of campus organizations. We were the…

  • Wounding words

    Charlotte Grinberg Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA   Still Life – A Student’s Table. William Michael Harnett. 1882. Philadelphia Museum of Art. In college, I majored in anthropology. I was interested in understanding the political, social, legal, and economic forces that influence behavior. As language is inherently related to consciousness and culture, its study was central to…

  • Simulation-based education and training: the reproduction of expert knowledge from military to healthcare applications

    Marco Luchetti Milano, Italy   Photo by Marco Luchetti Introduction Simulation can be defined as a technique or method to artificially reproduce the conditions of a phenomenon.1 Simulation-based training and education are designed to teach individuals the basic elements of a system by observing the results of actions or decisions through a feedback process generated…

  • A house call

    Martin Duke Mystic, Connecticut, United States   A doctor visiting a sick woman, and taking her pulse. Many years ago, in the mid 1980s, when I was still in clinical practice, I made a house call accompanied by a second year medical student who was coming to my office one day a week as part…

  • A Dickensian medical education

    Gregory RuteckiLyndhurst, Ohio, United States My four grandparents were Polish immigrants who came to America in the early twentieth century. They had no formal education, neither in Poland nor in their new home in Chicago, but worked hard and saved money to pay for the college education of their grandchildren. Life was not easy for…

  • A quiet night

    Henry Bair Palo Alto, California, United States   University College Hospital, London: the outpatients’ waiting room and dispensary. Wood engraving, 1872. Wellcome Collection. Public domain. It was the end of the week, the middle of the night, and the beginning of my ER shift. All was quiet, and I was studying at the nurses’ station,…

  • The time between our hands

    Samantha Below Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States   The hospital. Photo by Piron Guillaume on Unsplash Thread passes from the tools in your hands to be pulled by mine. You suture the vessels. I clear the path of knots. Our posture is separated by inches, our hearts by hand-breadths. Our hands are identical in the vibrations…