Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Cancer

  • The good, the bad, and the regrettable

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   “Man . . . cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.” — Frederick Nietzsche   Lab coat and scrubs. Photo by Samir. 2006. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. What follows is a description of different aspects of…

  • Modern day obstinacy: the persistence of pangalintaw

    Halima AbdulmaguidNorth Cotabato, Philippines In the first week of June, my mother was rushed to the hospital because her cough was getting worse and her shoulder pain no longer bearable. On her x-ray film we saw that half of her lungs were not visible; there was fluid inside causing the obscurity, and there was also…

  • Dr. Joycelyn Elders: An unwelcome prophet

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden “No prophet is welcome in his hometown.”— The Gospel of Saint Luke, 4:24. New American Standard Bible Joycelyn Elders, MD (b. 1933) was Surgeon General of the United States of America from 1993 to 1994. She was the second woman and the first Black person to have that position. Her life story…

  • Past, present, and future of psychedelic medicine

    Jennifer Keehn Baja California, Mexico   Photo by Merlin Lightpainting from Pexels While there are now more clinical trials than ever before on the therapeutic applications of psychedelics, the medicinal use of such substances is not new. Indigenous cultures worldwide have used plants, roots, vines, and fungi that produce altered states of consciousness in healing rituals…

  • Ellen Powell Tiberino’s The Operation

    Cody RitzPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States In the graphite drawing by the late Ellen Powell Tiberino titled The Operation (1980), a tangled chaos emanates from an operating table surrounded by medical professionals of varying expressions—the two closest of whom hunch over the mess of contraptions and viscera with claw-like hands. Another healthcare worker stares directly at…

  • Syndrome K and the Fatebenefratelli Hospital

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   Giovanni Borromeo – Italian doctor – Righteous Among the Nations. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 “Whoever saves one life, it is as if he saved the whole world.” — Talmud (Mishnah Sanhedrin 4:5)1   Italy was an ally of Nazi Germany and was required to enact anti-Semitic laws.2 Beginning in…

  • The sleep of doctors

    Barry MeisenbergAnnapolis, Maryland, United States The gods who rule 2AM summon the doctor from sleep to the sequestered place where the veneer of unearned pride is bleached away. You forgot to re-order a sodium level on the whiskered old fisherman with lung cancer. It was low last week and might be lower tomorrow. He looked…

  • George Crile Sr., founder of the Cleveland Clinic

    Portrait of G. W. Crile. Credit: Wellcome Collection. (CC BY 4.0) Early days George Crile was an exceptional man, a skilled surgeon who lived at a time when American medicine was emerging from its horse and buggy period and was embracing the principles of aseptic surgery and scientific medicine. Always full of new ideas, he was…

  • Twins

    John Graham-Pole Clydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada   Artwork by Susan Napier. Published with permission. Why was she taken? While you remain to question me for your school project? Renee had a project. Her seventh-grade class had been set the task of composing an essay on some aspect of American society. She had settled on tackling…

  • A moonie

    Simon Wein Petach Tikvah, Israel   Untitled blue face, Acrylic on Canvas, 50/70 cm, 2017. Painting by Daniel Wein. Published with permission of the artist. Wally Moon was a legend who stood at least 1.90 meters tall. The most striking things about him were his appearance and his gruffness. When I met him during my…