Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Claude Monet

  • Painting an ICU

    Mark TanNorthwest Deanery, England, United Kingdom “[Monet was] only an eye – yet what an eye.”— Paul Cézanne Much has been written about Claude Monet’s ophthalmic pathology.1-4 However, attributing his stylistic development to cataracts alone seems an overly reductionist view. In 1874, at least fifteen years before his Japanese Bridge and Water Lilies series, his…

  • Pink and yellow

    Govind Krishnan Durham, North Carolina, United States I am wearing pink, I have a rosy glowMy breaths are even, measured, slowThe doctors come and go. Come and go. Come and go.But sometimes they mutter, their heads bowed low. And when they do this, I rest my hands on my growing bellylistening intently, but understanding barely.…

  • Sarah’s lesson

    Henri ColtLaguna Beach, California, United States Sarah put her hand on my forearm and dug a fingernail into my white coat. “Doc, I druther you not call my husband in just yet,” she said. “Doc?” I smiled. “You never call me Doc.” I finished installing the morphine pump and set the dose at an hourly…

  • Monet’s illnesses: Beyond cataracts

    Sally Metzler Chicago, Illinois, USA   Fig. 1: Claude Monet, Apple Trees in Blossom, 1872, Union League Club of Chicago. Fig. 2: Claude Monet, The Japanese Footbridge, ca. 1922, Modern Museum of Art New York. No other artist in the world is more beloved than Claude Monet (1840-1926), the father of French Impressionism. From Shanghai…

  • Identity and service

    Sona EnginganCameroon, South west region In my country everyone wants to travel away. Parents, friends, and relatives all give the same advice: “Leave Cameroon once you graduate and get a high wage job abroad. Do not waste your talents here, there are no opportunities.” All young Cameroonians know this advice. I lost both parents before…

  • Monet and his cataracts

    Peter KopplinToronto, Ontario, Canada In January 1923, the elderly artist Claude Monet struggled restlessly in his room after his cataract surgery. He got up and tore at his bandages.1 His family put it down to his temperament. But an elderly man in his eighties, immobilized, recovering from surgery with limited sight in the left eye…