Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: AIDS

  • Making a difference in the AIDS epidemic

    Sandro VentoPhnom Penh, Cambodia Enzo entered the room with hesitancy. A nurse drew his blood, then moved him to where a young doctor was waiting, looking serious. As he asked Enzo to sit down, he inspired confidence. Enzo answered his initial questions with few words, having told his story too many times to too many…

  • AIDS: Thru a glass darkly

    S.E.S. MedinaBenbrook, Texas, United States I sat in the deep, cool shade of a stout, leafy Texas cedar escaping the torrid summer heat, idle thoughts meandering. Cotton-ball clouds grazed lazily across their azure prairie. The pervasive insane miasma swirling like a whirlwind around COVID-19 reminded me of days past when a very different virus dominated…

  • Dr. Joycelyn Elders: An unwelcome prophet

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “No prophet is welcome in his hometown.”— The Gospel of Saint Luke, 4:24. New American Standard Bible Joycelyn Elders, MD (b. 1933) was Surgeon General of the United States of America from 1993 to 1994. She was the second woman and the first Black person to have that position. Her life story…

  • Book review: The Origins of AIDS

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, United Kingdom This is a revised and updated edition of a book first published in 2011. This edition is timely, as this year marks the fortieth anniversary of the first descriptions of the disease today known as AIDS. In 1981 Gottlieb and co-workers in the US reported to the Centers for Disease…

  • One chaplain’s journey: Teaching, hospice, and humanities

    Terry McIntyreForest Park, Illinois, United States Auburn University was an easy choice for a graduate student with two preschool youngsters. Teaching medieval literature was the draw. Later, a divorce necessitated working as a project manager in sub-contracting. When the Lutheran campus pastor in Ann Arbor wanted me on the property committee, I declined. Instead, I…

  • The use of language in health and illness narratives

    Mariella ScerriVictor Grech Malta While I was as busy as anyoneon the sunny plain of life, I heardof you laid aside in the shadowyrecess where our sunshine ofhope and joy could neverpenetrate to you.– Harriet Martineau1 Literary works can illustrate the loneliness and social isolation experienced by people when they are sick.2 The chasm between health…

  • Ladies in red: Medical and metaphorical reflections on La Traviata

    Milad MattaGregory RuteckiLyndhurst, Ohio, United States “. . . phthisic beauty[’s] . . . most famous operatic embodiment was Violetta Valery . . .This physical type became not only fashionable but sexy . . . When a society does not understand—and cannot control—a disease, ground seems to open up for mythologizing . . . it.”1…

  • Danse of the virus

    S.E.S. MedinaBenbrook, Texas, United States It is born with tens of thousands of identical brothers and sisters when the thin-walled, transparent, fatty bubble of their nurturing womb suddenly bursts—releasing them into the tumultuary rapids of the host’s bloodstream. It possesses no sense of self, no manner of consciousness—even in the most rudimentary way. It lacks…

  • The gift of life—From whom?

    George PantalosLouisville, Kentucky, United States I always thought that donating blood was a good thing to do, but did not get around to it until an intense winter storm left several inches of snow and ice in central Ohio where I was in graduate school in January of 1978. Slick roads resulted in auto accidents…

  • Red Cross humanitarianism and female volunteers in Australia

    Ian WillisCamden, NSW, Austalia “There were a lot of people who had lost everything,” said Australian Red Cross volunteer Tracey Ayrton, who has been providing comfort to bushfire victims at the Laurieton evacuation centre in northern New South Wales. Tracey, who has taken time off work, has been volunteering for over ten years. She says,…