Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Literary Essays

  • Camus, Meursault, and the Biopsychosocial model

    Liam ButchartStony Brook, New York Since the development of medical literature studies in the 1970s, the field has grown and expanded in many fascinating ways.1 For example, courses in medical schools now encourage students to examine their own biases and emotional responses, and medical literature scholars emphasize the educational and clinical value of learning to…

  • We are all hospitalized (metaphorically speaking)

    F. Gonzalez-CrussiChicago, Illinois, United States Among the many species of adversity that unavoidably befall us during life, to become a hospitalized patient is not the slightest. Today, hardly anyone is exempted: life begins and ends inside hospital quarters. We are born in some obstetrics suite and die amid beeps of life-supporting equipment, the hiss of…

  • It’s elementary: The addictions of Sherlock Holmes

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, USA One might ask, why write about the addictions of a fictional character? The answer is that there is often a fine line between reality and fiction. The New York Times columnist Bret Stephens recently quoted a survey that found 20% of British teenagers thought that Winston Churchill was a fictional…

  • Joseph Bell and Conan Doyle

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, England “…The remarkable individuality and discriminating tact of my old master made a deep and lasting impression on me, though I had not the faintest idea that it would one day lead me to forsake medicine for story writing.” Arthur Conan Doyle is remembered worldwide as the creator of Sherlock Holmes. The…

  • The Gold-Headed Cane revisited

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Over many centuries there have been several icons symbolic of medical practice. Typical is the single serpent, the Aesculapian wand — a “totem of Medicine”— seen in the constellation Ophiochus (the serpent holder). Serpents in ancient cultures represented fertility, rebirth, and strength. The Aesculapian wand is often confused with the two…

  • More than “toil and trouble”: Macbeth and medicine

    Mariel TishmaChicago, Illinois, United States The image of a woman – a witch — working over a bubbling cauldron filled with stomach-turning substances is a staple of both horror and more family friendly media. One such example is Shakespeare’s Macbeth, specifically the “Double, double toil and trouble” speech given by the three witches in Act…

  • Two tales of talipes equinovarus

    Christopher WalkerBielsko-Biala, Poland Congenital talipes equinovarus, better known as clubfoot, is a poorly understood but surprisingly common medical condition. According to Ansar et al, it affects about one in one thousand newborns, though this figure varies by country.1 There is a roughly fifty-fifty split between those born with bilateral clubfoot and those with only one…

  • The iron crab

    Sean VarnerBaltimore, Maryland, United States You only live twice:Once when you are bornAnd once when you look death in the face.— Ian Fleming, You Only Live Twice In 1955 the thriller writer Ian Fleming traveled to Istanbul for an Interpol conference, which at first he found “spectacularly dull.”1 This was to change dramatically on the…

  • Intersection of faith and science in Garcia-Marquez’s Of Love and Other Demons

    Sualeha ShekhaniKarachi, Pakistan “If the swords of past conflicts are beaten into plowshares, and if taboos regarding the discussion of religion can be overcome, both medicine and religion can learn constructively from each other.”1 The opposition of reason and religion has a long history. While this may be due to their unique epistemological positioning, bitterness…

  • Gilgamesh and medicine’s quest to conquer death

    Anika KhanKarachi, Pakistan “O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I go?A thief has taken hold of my [flesh!]For there in my bed-chamber Death does abide,and wherever [I] turn, there too will be Death.”—From The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Standard Version, Tablet XI1 “O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I…