Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Atara Messinger

  • Margaret Edson’s W;t: lessons on person-centered care

    Atara Messinger Toronto, Ontario, Canada     “She slips off her bracelet. She loosens the ties and the top gown slides to the floor.” American playwright Margaret Edson’s 1998 play W;t has been described as “ninety minutes of suffering and death mitigated by a pelvic exam and a lecture on seventeenth-century poetry.”1 When W;t was…

  • “The GBM in Room 9”: On the objectifying power of naming and diagnosing

    Atara Messinger Toronto, Ontario, Canada   French literary theorist and philosopher Maurice Blanchot (1907–2003) I wheeled the patient through the double doors into the operating room. As I parked the hospital bed next to the operating table, I quickly glanced at the patient’s chart. NAME: ‘J.’ AGE: 28. HISTORY: Progressive headaches, visual changes, and right-sided…