cardiologist - Hektoen International

The “weak” intern

October 15, 2021

Htet Khine Reno, Nevada, United States Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash “She is quite weak,” I overheard two senior residents say about one of my co-interns. I tried to tune out the conversation—I did not have enough time or mental capacity to comprehend what being “weak” entailed. I was busy writing notes, answering […]

No complaints, only symptoms

February 5, 2021

Peter Arnold Sydney, Australia Aerial view of Sydney Harbour. 2015. Photo by user Whiteghost.ink, via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 4.0 “No complaints, only symptoms,” I told my cardiologist this year. How dare I complain? I am eighty-four. Thirty-two years have passed since my quintuple coronary artery bypass; eighteen years since a diagnosis, in one of […]

General Robert E. Lee’s myocardial infarction: Did illness impact the Battle of Gettysburg?

January 29, 2021

Lloyd Klein San Francisco, California, United States Robert E. Lee in March 1864[?]. Photo by Julian Vannerson. Library of Congress. No known restrictions on publication. Ascribing the loss of the Battle of Gettysburg to an illness of General Robert E. Lee became common among historians thirty years ago. The legend of his apparently poor […]

Intubation incarceration: A true tale of torture

January 7, 2021

Abram Gabriel Piscataway, New Jersey, United States The Custody of a Prisoner Does Not Call for Torture (La seguridad de un reo no exige tormento). Goya (Francisco de Goya y Lucientes). ca. 1815; published ca. 1859. Metropolitan Museum of Art. For five days, I could not speak at all. In November 2010, I had […]

Richard J. Bing: reflecting on a century of creativity and innovation

August 25, 2020

Joseph Burns Yehuda Shapir New Hyde Park, New York, United States [Richard J. Bing, M.D.] 1975. National Library of Medicine. As the tenth anniversary of the passing of Dr. Richard J. Bing approaches, the occasion offers an opportune moment to reflect on the life and momentous achievements of an eminent cardiologist. Richard J. Bing […]

How to save a life

May 22, 2019

Sam Campbell Moh’D Ibrahim Johnson City, Tennessee, United States “We had been happy together, though it took years to convince her family to allow us to marry.” My wife is in Texas, threatening to file divorce papers. I am here, 996 miles away, trying to find Mrs. Smith who has wandered out of her […]

Physician, heal thyself

January 30, 2019

Moustapha Abousamra Ventura, California, United States Author’s right coronary artery before stenting “Physician, heal thyself” is a biblical reminder (Luke 4:23) that while physicians are eager and able to heal illness in others, they are often unable to heal themselves. A similar saying, “The cobbler’s children have no shoes,” was mentioned in the Oxford […]

A love story

March 21, 2018

Kate Rowland Chicago, Illinois, United States “Is that her partner in there with her?” Ankita, a second-year resident, and I had just finished seeing a new patient, Marian. Marian’s detailed problem list had required an equally detailed visit, and Ankita had addressed her urgent issues: uncontrolled diabetes, cirrhosis, and stage 3 congestive heart failure. […]

Empathy for medical students

April 28, 2017

David Jeffrey Edinburgh, United Kingdom Medical students check blood glucose on a patient. On a windy corner of Drummond Street, not far from Rutherford’s pub in Edinburgh, there is a small bronze plaque with these words: “And when I remembered all that I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain […]

A teacher remembered

January 29, 2017

Martin Duke Mystic, Connecticut “Ludwig W Eichna, MD, NYU Medical Violet 1950. Image courtesy of the Lillian and Clarence de la Chapelle Medical Archives at NYU. While a student in medical school during the early 1950s, I was assigned by chance to the medical service of Dr. Ludwig Eichna at New York City’s Bellevue […]