Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Charleston

  • It always comes down to medicine

    Matthew TurnerWashington, United States For six days, the brigands held a knife to the city’s throat. Outside a handful of settlements far to the northeast—which any of the city’s inhabitants would firmly tell you didn’t count—Charleston was the jewel of England’s possessions in the New World. The wealth that the port city generated had fattened…

  • The grieving one: On the death of a spouse

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States “A real experience of death isolates one absolutely. The bereaved cannot communicate with the unbereaved.”– Iris Murdoch, An Accidental Man, 1971 “Alone” holds the word “one.” After the death of a spouse, we are al(one). ____ One pillow on the bed. One imprint on the sheet. One towel in…

  • Dream on

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States ChartThis is a 32-year-old female with widely metastatic breast cancer admitted to the hospital for control of shortness of breath and pain. ____ Melissa sits slumped, mouth open, snoring. I pull a chair bedside and gently touch her shoulder. Her head jerks, startled. She wipes drool from her chin…

  • Miscarriage: A medical student in a rural clinic, Central America, 1977

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States Elena sits perched on a gurney with claret-stained thighs. She has just miscarried in the clinic’s lavatory. She inquires of the gender of the fetus, and hands twitching and heart flapping, I blurt, unexpectedly and duplicitously (for I could not know), “Una bebita.” A little girl. A guttural sob…

  • Wedding anniversary

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…and everywhereThe ceremony of innocence is drowned…— W. B. Yeats, The Second Coming It is their tenth wedding anniversary. They are traveling to a restaurant on a black, moonless night. They round a curve as a semi-trailer truck veers across the center line.…

  • Metastases

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States The fact Isthey are there,gathered like aclutter of popcorn,some kernels,others fluffy white swirls,but they are there,bound to a globof shambolic cellscurled in the cornerof the right lungbeneath seamsof tar and tobacco. PAUL ROUSSEAU is a semi-retired physician and writer published in The Healing Muse, Blood and Thunder, Hektoen International,…

  • Bleeding science dry: The history of scientific racism and blood

    Matthew CasasKansas City, United States One might be familiar with the expression “We All Bleed Red.” But what exactly does blood have to say about our “humanity”? Ripe with good intention, the aforementioned mantra represents a campaign to promote peace by winning over the hearts and minds of those assumed to be unaware of a…