Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Asia

  • Muthulakshmi Reddi: physician, activist, and social revolutionary

    Sumana VardhanChicago, Illinois, United States Born in 1886 under British rule in Tamil Nadu, India, Muthulakshmi Reddi faced an era of gender inequalities and fated child marriage. Despite the social limitations of the time, Reddi’s parents encouraged her interest in learning, breaking tradition to allow her to continue education past secondary school. Reddi applied to…

  • Outsourced clinical trials and ethical implications: India the most preferred global clinical trial hub

    Persis NaumannPittsburg, Pennsylvania Introduction Pharmaceutical research is a complex social enterprise. With the proliferation of corporate globalization in the healthcare industry, pharmaceutical companies from western developed countries have increasingly offshored and outsourced global biopharmaceutical clinical trials to developing countries. The power of global pharmaceutical industries is extensive. It is important to understand the structure of…

  • When a movie ticket to the battered may help!

    Rema SundarTrivandrum, Kerala, India Domestic violence awareness through film When four-time Grammy Award winner Tracy Chapman crooned “Last night I heard the screaming,” she was reflecting on a global public health problem. Instances of abuse and violence do not discriminate based on wealth, race, or education. ‘The World’s Women 2015″ report from the United Nations …

  • Timelessness of the intangible

    Bill WolakNew Jersey, United States Born in 1943, Dileep Jhaveri is one of the most dynamic and articulate poets writing in India today. Like the Czech poet Miroslav Holub, his poetry mixes the objectivity of a scientist with an indefatigable lyricism. For Jhaveri, poetry is a theatre of ideas, emotions, and theoretical propositions. Dileep Jhaveri…

  • Lifeline Express: the magic train hospital of India

    Satish SarosheIndore, India, United States Lifeline Express, colloquially known as the Magic Train Hospital of India, is the world’s first modern technologically advanced hospital-train. Established in 1991 and completing twenty-three years of service, it has travelled the length and breadth of the country, bringing medical aid and relief to the remotest and most inaccessible areas…

  • The Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore

    Preeti ShanbagMumbai, India  The Christian Medical College Hospital was founded by Ida Sophia Scudder in 1900, in response to a calling. Daughter of a North American missionary couple working in India, she was born in Tindivanum in south India in 1870. Her earliest experiences of India were of the terrible famine of the 1880s and…

  • Evolution from recapitulation theory to Neural Darwinism

    JMS PearceLondon, United Kingdom Early evolutionary theorists noted that the evolution of the brain, its structural organization, and microscopic structure appeared to develop concurrently with human anatomy through the process of evolution. This understanding of the evolution of the brain was heavily influenced by both the theories of phylogeny, which discusses this evolutionary lineage of…

  • Out of the medicine cabinet: An out doctor in a closeted country

    Anirban ChatterjeeDilshad Garden, Delhi, India Earlier this year, having planned an interview-based analysis of the issues faced by transgender (LGBT) medical professionals acquiring medical education in India, I started contacting medical students and professionals in the LGBT community. Since I myself am a part of this community, I was able to locate them quite easily.…

  • Remembering an uncrowded world

    Aroop MangalikAlbuquerque, New Mexico, United States I was born in the year of the Elephant – an auspicious year according to the elders – with 30 other million born in that year. My father had hopes for me, hopes that I would see what he did not, achieve what he could not, and enjoy comforts…

  • Risus sardonicus

    Arunachalam KumarMangalore, India There is a pithy adage that goes around in medical circles, “Those who can – DO, those who can’t – TEACH.” Comments like this notwithstanding, some still commit their professional lives to medical teaching as an attractive and rewarding career option. But, who of rational mind, one may ask, would choose anatomy…