Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Category: Personal Narratives

  • Avulsions

    Torree McGowan Culver, Oregon, United States   The Chasm between the Then and The Now. Photo by the author, taken near Denali National Park. There are moments in life that serve as a dividing line. These instants sharply incise our worlds into before and after, the then and the now. Moments shimmer like a crystalline…

  • Identity and service

    Sona Engingan Cameroon, South west region   Cliff Walk at Pourville. Claude Monet. 1882. The Art Institute of Chicago In my country everyone wants to travel away. Parents, friends, and relatives all give the same advice: “Leave Cameroon once you graduate and get a high wage job abroad. Do not waste your talents here, there…

  • Living with incidental cyberchondria

    Theresa Danna Burbank, California, United States   Bioblasts. Credit: Odra Noel. CC BY-NC Before the Internet, if I had a pain in my chest, I would assume it was gas and then burp and move on with my day. After the Internet, if I have a pain in my chest, I panic and think, “That’s…

  • Self-esteem and skin diseases

    Bebeyi Abiodun Nigeria   We don’t live forever, so let’s make those around us happy. African Global Pharma (AGP) When I was a little girl, I looked for angular objects to help me scratch my legs. The itch and disgust encroached on my everyday life. I always wore my socks pulled up even though it…

  • When there’s no plug to pull

    Darcy Sternberg New York, New York, United States   On the Waves of Love. Edvard Munch, printed by Otto Felsing. 1896. The Art Institute of Chicago. At night I lie awake on the living room sofa staring at the moon, envying its constancy. Change had eaten up our lives. My husband, Marty, and I met…

  • Lost in translation

    Jonathan Xian Houston, Texas, United States   Two Human Beings. The Lonely Ones. Edvard Munch. 1894. The Art Institute of Chicago. At the start of residency, you should make a list of five things you value most and think carefully about which ones you can live without. Cross them off one by one until only…

  • Gingerbread

    Olga Diganchina Astana, Kazakhstan   “Happy Memories” by Ekaterina Chingilidi. 2014. Published with Permission. The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why. -Mark Twain   Patients had mostly become faceless for me. I had treated and discharged so many of them as…

  • Appendicitis: a teenager’s insight

    Berklee Cohen Clarksville, Maryland, United States   Berklee and his sister displaying their appendectomy scars in front of the community hospital where they underwent surgery. If we have enjoyed good health for most of our lives, we often take that health and happiness for granted. An event occurred during summer break that enabled me to…

  • Letter to my body

    Tereza Crvenkovic Sydney, Australia   Me with My Body (author). Photographer: Lenny Christou Dear Body, Here we are clinging to this rope, swinging from side-to-side, above this great big stage with its pitch-black backdrop. Anything could happen to us. Anything. How did it come to this? How did we get here? I do not have the…

  • My mother and Proust

    Dean Gianakos Lynchburg, Virginia, United States   “Mom, one day I’m going to write a story about you. I’ve already picked out a title: “My Mother and Proust,” I laugh. I look at her face, hoping for a smile. Before my eighty-six-year-old mother developed Parkinson’s dementia a few years ago, she would have laughed with…