Australia - Hektoen International

COVID time

August 24, 2020

Norelle Lickiss Hobart, Tasmania, Australia View of Earth, showing Africa, Europe, and Asia–taken by Apollo 11 crewmember. 17 July 1969. Image by NASA, Johnson Space Center. Who will be the chronicler of this? of how the tower fell, of how the tolling bell sounded the world’s crying. And how the darkness fell, […]

Ode to my stethoscope

May 5, 2020

Hilton Koppe Lennox Head, Australia Poet’s note My Littman stethoscope has accompanied me on my journey in medicine across five decades into premature medical retirement. It was definitely more difficult to lay down my stethoscope than it had been for me to recommend medical retirement to many of my patients. This poem includes a […]

Plagues and prejudice

April 22, 2020

Anne Jacobson Oak Park, Illinois, United States Figure 1. Honolulu Chinatown fire of 1900. Hawaii State Archives. It was a calm, clear January morning on the gritty streets of paradise. Honolulu, the capital of the newly-annexed U.S. territory of Hawaii, was ushering out a century of upheaval that had included the arrival of explorers, […]

The history of the Red Cross / Red Crescent in blood

February 10, 2020

GAP Secretariat Perth, WA, Australia It has been almost one hundred years since the first Red Cross / Red Crescent (RC/RC) blood transfusion service was established by the British Red Cross in 1921. Today, more than 80% of all Red Cross / Crescent National Societies are operating a blood program as a core health […]

Blood debt

February 10, 2020

Jules Reich Chicago, Illinois, United States A patient donating blood, Australia, c. late 1940s. Via Wikimedia. In 1937, the first U.S. blood bank opened in Chicago. It was originally called a Blood Preservation Laboratory, but its founder, Dr. Bernard Fantus, changed the name to blood bank. For someone who spent a large part of […]

Red Cross humanitarianism and female volunteers in Australia

February 4, 2020

Ian Willis Camden, NSW, Austalia Red Cross volunteers assist people who were evacuated from Mallacoota to Hastings by Naval ship. Mallacoota was cut off by the bushfires that have been ravaging the east coast if Australia since late 2019. Source: Australian Red Cross with permission “There were a lot of people who had lost everything,” […]

Blood and bone

January 30, 2020

Sue Stevenson Melbourne, Australia Person Performing Fire Dance at Night by Maris Rhamdani, 2018, on Pexels. The compression socks assist with my low blood volume but they look terrible with my summer dress. Secondhand, $12 on eBay, a 1940s cut with flowers and cap sleeves. The compression socks remind me of ancient old ladies […]

Humanitarian for all: The life of Henry Dunant

January 29, 2020

Stephen Kosnar Lima, Peru Henry Dunant 1855. ICRC on Flickr. CC BY-SA 2.0. In his late thirties and bankrupt, Henry Dunant lived in abject poverty, on occasion being forced to eat bread crusts and sleep outdoors in Paris. It is a bitter slice of one man’s history, particularly given that only a few years […]

Christopher Wren and blood circulation

December 3, 2019

Richard de Grijs Sydney, Australia Daniel Vuillermin Beijing, China An early instance of blood transfusion from lamb to man. Wellcome Collection. Public domain. “A young man of marvellous gifts who, when not yet sixteen years of age, advanced astronomy, gnomonics, statics, and mechanics by his distinguished discoveries, and from then on continues to advance […]

Health care in Nigeria

May 8, 2019

Obinna Ejide Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria Laundry room in Nigerian Hospital. 2006. Photo by Mike Blyth. CC BY 3.0. A brilliant young student at the University of Calabar in Cross Rivers State, Nigeria, died recently during a strike of the doctors at the university teaching hospital. This is not the first time that such […]