Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Personal Narratives

  • Your worst experience with a physician

    Matthew Wooten Houston, Texas, United States   Photo by Waskyria Miranda on Pexels As a second-year medical student, I was supposed to interview patients and physicians about their experiences. Specifically, I was supposed to help find ways for physicians to develop better relationships with their patients. When trying to find patients to interview, I thought: Who…

  • The art of war and medicine

    Xinxin Wu Omaha, Nebraska, United States   Hai Wan Wu on Lunar New Year 2003 wearing a traditional tangzhuang. War and medicine are two vastly different fields, yet they share a common goal. In war, soldiers risk their lives to defend their country; in medicine, healthcare professionals work to heal the sick and prevent illness.…

  • The night the emergency room staff vanished

    Edward Tabor Bethesda, Maryland   “333-365 Corridor.” Photo by Karen Mardahl on Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. One of the strangest events of my medical career occurred on a spring evening in 1975. It was during one of my outpatient months as a pediatric resident at a large medical center in New York City. During the…

  • Revising my bargain with the deity

    Barry Perlman New York, New York, United States   Photo by S. Tsuchiya on Unsplash. My parents lived into their nineties. Before they died, they endured years of dementia. Aware of my potential genetic inheritance, I have long harbored a deep dread of what my future might hold. If my curved pinky fingers were inherited…

  • On the way to school

    Mary Jumbelic Syracuse, New York, United States   Illustration by Joshua Jumbles. Published with permission. A thin line of blood oozed from a shallow cut in the skin, like the first stroke of an artist’s brush on a blank canvas. The second and third incisions intersected the first to form a large Y-shape. Sanguinous fluid…

  • A moment of philosophy

    Nishitha Bujala Hyderabad, Telangana, India   Photo by cottonbro from Pexels I seem to be in a constant state of anxiety these days. With my one-year plans and goals seemingly disrupted by the pandemic, my medical licensing exams postponed, my ability to focus shrunk to the size of a peanut, my interest to study equaling…

  • Early lessons

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Virginia Emergency Room, image from “Historic VCU: A VCU Images Special Collection” VCU Libraries from Richmond, VA, USA, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons Finally, it was my first day in a US hospital after studying medicine in Europe for five and a half years. A medical education at the…

  • Rehearsing lines

    Catalina Florina Florescu Hoboken, New Jersey, United States   Coffee Queen. Iulia Şchiopu. Permission granted by artist. CHARACTERS: Eve Ana TIME AND SETTING: Now, here. Two women are seated on a bench. That’s all you need to know. Plus that their name is a palindrome. Mirrored names. Make what you want out of this.  …

  • The tortoise and the hare: a pandemic perspective

    Pranita Rao  Pune, India   The Tortoise and the Hare. Illustration From The Æsop for Children, by Æsop, illustrated by Milo Winter. Project Gutenberg.  “Are you ready to lose again?” smirked the hare, looking down at the tortoise who was warming up for their weekly running challenge. The tortoise spent his days training body and mind to win races against the…

  • Life and death of a dog

    Hugh Tunstall-Pedoe  Dundee, Scotland   Photograph of Petra, courtesy of the author.   We learn from the life and death of family pets, a microcosm of our own existence. We nurtured Petra, a guide-dog puppy, in our family home for more than a year, after which we handed her over for her formal training. She was…