Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: bronchoscope

  • America’s first bronchoscopist

    J. Gordon FriersonPalo Alto, California, United States One day, in the tough coal-mining city of Pittsburgh of the early 1900s, two Sisters of Mercy brought an emaciated, severely dehydrated, seven-year-old girl to a doctor’s office. Sometime earlier the girl had swallowed lye, thinking it was sugar, and the ensuing inflammation and scarring had all but…

  • A good man

    Tuhina RamanPhiladelphia, PA, USA My heart sank as soon as I saw it—tumor nodules in the trachea and a mass eroding through the stent in his airway. I had been hoping against hope. It is always difficult losing a favorite patient to a bad disease. I had biopsied and stented his airway five weeks earlier.…