Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Careers

  • A birth remembered

    F. Gonzalez-Crussi Chicago, Illinois, United States   Figure 1. The Birth of Benjamin and the Death of Rachel, by Francesco Furini (1600 or 1603–1646). Wellcome Collection. Public domain. Memory is to old age as presbyopia (far-sightedness) is to eyesight. Presbyopia makes you lose the ability to see clearly at a normal near working distance while…

  • The bubonic plague in Eyam

    JMS Pearce Hull, England, United Kingdom   William Mompesson In medicine most instances of outstanding acts of heroic human courage relate to individual patients or to their attendant doctors, nurses, and caregivers. Here is a unique example of the collective self-sacrifice of a tiny rural community, which probably saved the lives of thousands. The year…

  • Epidemics from plague to Coronavirus

    Michael Yafi Houston, Texas, United States   Copper engraving of Doctor Schnabel [i.e Dr. Beak], a plague doctor in seventeenth-century Rome. From the Internet Archive’s copy of Eugen Hollände Die Karikatur und Satire in der Medizin: Medico-Kunsthistorische Studie von Professor Dr. Eugen Holländer. circa 1656. Throughout history humanity has faced many epidemics and pandemics that caused…

  • Ferdinand Sauerbruch, father of thoracic surgery

    Annabelle Slingerland Leon Lacquet Leiden, the Netherlands   Ferndinand Sauerbruch at a medical lecture at the University of Zurich, between 1910 and 1917. Source unknown. Accessed via Wikimedia commons. Source Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1875-1951) was one of the most important thoracic surgeons of the first half of the twentieth century, remembered for pioneering a method that…

  • Aniza

    Eleonore Blaurock-Busch Germany   Her Scream by Arlene LaDell Hayes. Encaustic and Oil on Panel  14×11. Source I miss my people and my home, but don’t send me back. I don’t have a passport, no papers. Dad gave them to my husband-to-be, the one who couldn’t take me now, and I am not sad about…

  • Blood is the life

    Saameer Pani Sydney, Australia   The Beheading of Saint John the Baptist. Giovanni di Paolo. 1455/60. The Art Institute of Chicago. Vampire—the very word itself conjures up images of supernatural creatures who look not unlike you and me, prowl about at night, prey on unsuspecting souls, and sink their fangs into innumerable, hapless victims to…

  • Leukemia past and present: Lessons learned and future opportunities

    Nada Hussein Giza, Egypt   John Hughes Bennett. Painting by Henry Wright Kerr. Unknown date. Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh; Supplied by The Public Catalogue Foundation. “The longer you can look back, the farther you can look forward,” said Winston Churchill in a meeting at The Royal College of Physicians in 1944. At that…

  • Are we culturally tone-deaf?

    Clara Koo New York, United States   Hahoe Folk Village Mask Dance. Ian Sewell. July 2008. Accessed via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 2.5 The cultural norms of American medicine are speciously like those of traditional Korean culture, but the differences place Korean-American students at a disadvantage. When I began my third year of medical school, a…

  • Theme

    EPIDEMICS Published in March, 2020 H E K T O R A M A   . The recent coronavirus outbreak inevitably brings to mind the Spanish flu, the deadly influenza pandemic of a century ago. Here we republish seven articles about this devastating viral disease that spread to the four corners of the world, killing…

  • Dirty, dark, dangerous: coal miners’ nystagmus

    Ronald Fishman Chicago, Illinois, United States   A coal miner without a headlamp digging an undercut at the coal face, using only the dim light supplied by a small flame lamp. From Snell 12 It’s dark as a dungeon and damp as the dew, Where the danger is double and pleasures are few Where the rain…