Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Canada

  • Presentism

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States The Oxford English Dictionary defines presentism as “uncritical adherence to present-day attitudes, especially the tendency to interpret past events in terms of modern values and concepts.” The term may have been used as far back as the 1870s and applies to acts, beliefs, and people that were acceptable or even…

  • Dr. Sabina Spielrein: Consequences of feminism and love

    Irving RosenToronto, Ontario, Canada While all our lives are eventful, some people tend to experience situations that set them apart. Born in 1885 in Rostov, Czarist Russia, Sabina was the eldest child of prosperous intellectualized parents of Jewish origin. Academically and artistically gifted, by age eighteen she developed alarming behavior. She showed tics, grimaces, body…

  • C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the twentieth century

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK Stroke, in spite of its serious and widespread impact, had long received little interest from physicians. C. Miller Fisher, one of the twentieth century’s outstanding neurologists and researchers, revolutionized the management of stroke. In this well-researched and readable biography, Louis Caplan, a distinguished Harvard neurologist and former trainee of Miller…

  • The most enduring fictional character in literature, Sherlock Holmes, created by a physician

    Marshall LichtmanRochester, New York, United States My colleague and friend, Professor Seymour I. Schwartz, a distinguished surgeon and academician, has chronicled the careers of over 100 physicians who were notable writers in his monograph From Medicine to Manuscript: Doctors with a Literary Legacy.1 These physician-writers ranged from Maimonides to John Locke to John Keats to…

  • Canadian contributions to the study of pathology

    Guillermo QuinonezLaurette GeldenhuysNova Scotia, Canada Canadian and American medicine in general, and pathology in particular, have developed in parallel and in synchrony since the nineteenth century. Despite Canada’s limited population, scientific cultural similarities and geographical conditions would explain such development. Canadians, some of whom practiced both in the U.S. and Canada, have made important contributions…

  • Review of: Health Humanities in Postgraduate Medical Education: A Handbook to the Heart of Medicine

    J.T.H. ConnorSt. John’s, Newfoundland, Canada The backbone of this innovative and informative collection is comprised of eleven essays that address the spectrum of the arts and humanities and how they relate to postgraduate medical education. Most of the authors and their experiences are grounded in Canadian medical schools, but the literature they draw from is…

  • Reporting a pandemic

    Francis ChristianSaskatoon, Canada Dust to dust and doom delivered by newscasts dripping irony in considered doses of despair; feigning knowledge of ignorance, feigning ignorance of absent panic and knowledge from experts claiming uncertainty. But the web of knowledge weaves chiffoned layers for me and you and John, openly uncertain, uncertainly open to imperfect measure of…

  • A surgeon and a gentleman: the life of James Barry

    Mariel Tishma Chicago, Illinois, United States Dr. James Barry with John, a servant, and his dog, Psyche. Unknown Artist. c1850.   “Do not consider whether what I say is a young man speaking, but whether my discussion with you is that of a man of understanding.”1 – Dedication of the thesis of James Barry In November of 1809, a…

  • Bloody segregation: The story of how Charles Richard Drew found life abundantly

    Amy DeMattGreensburg, Pennsylvania, United States “Desperation, weakness, vulnerability – these things will always be exploited. You need to protect the weak, ring-fence them, with something far stronger than empathy.”—Zadie Smith What if, instead of simply practicing empathy, you could literally become a part of someone else? What if you could join a part of your…

  • Defining donation

    Ahmad ShakeriHowsikan KugathasanToronto, Canada Money was tight in college for my roommate and me. I had a book buying habit and he frequented restaurants. Both of us were tutors but our financial strategies and our part time jobs were not the only things that united us. There was blood. Every few months, the American Red…