Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: communication

  • Esperanto and the babble of dreamers

    Simon WeinPetach Tikvah, Israel L.L. Zamenhof (1859–1917) was an ophthalmologist and philologist from Białystok, then in Russia, now Poland. In the 1880s, he created a new language called Esperanto. The word Esperanto comes from the Latin, spiro, which means “to breathe.” Spiro also means one who hopes. Thus, loosely translated, Esperanto means “where there is…

  • Flesh on flesh

    Paul RousseauCharleston, South Carolina, United States There is a solace to flesh on flesh, a laying on of the hands, a ritual of caring,  but now, in our distant worlds,  we hide in pixeled foxholes,  tap, tap, tapping on computers, tablets, and cell phones,  the patient unseen and untouched. PAUL ROUSSEAU (he/his/him) is a semi-retired…

  • Wounding words

    Charlotte GrinbergCambridge, Massachusetts, USA In college, I majored in anthropology. I was interested in understanding the political, social, legal, and economic forces that influence behavior. As language is inherently related to consciousness and culture, its study was central to my learning. In my medical anthropology course, for example, we spent hours discussing the linguistic difference…

  • Medicine, musically

    Willem BloisHalifax, Nova Scotia I sat on the piano bench, head down, staring at the space between middle C and the key above it. I could see my teacher out of the corner of my eye, sitting forward in her chair, no longer relaxed nor casually listening to the first movement of a Haydn piano…

  • Montaigne’s Essays: Emotions and empathy

    David JeffreyEdinburgh, Scotland The term empathy was coined a little over a hundred years ago and since then its definition has evolved. At first empathy was regarded as a sharing of emotions, but modern medicine emphasizes cognitive aspects of the concept.1 Regarding the sharing of emotion with suspicion has led to a form of professionalism…

  • Between frames: Liminality and the emergence of self

    Jane PersonsIowa City, Iowa, United States The development of compassion, along with wisdom, skill, and communication, is pivotally important to the practice of medicine.1 Perhaps even more importantly, development of personal character – such as through a medical education that emphasizes ethics, professionalism, and the humanities – is critical to the emergence of effective and…

  • Bigger than a black box

    Valeri Lantz-GefrohTexas, United States I am an actor, director, and acting teacher. And my theater is a medical school in Texas. “Wait, what?” My life in the last decade has been full of, “Wait, what?” The answers to that question have brought me profound appreciation for many things—but especially the expansiveness of theater training. I…

  • The language game of medicine

    Gunjan SharmaDevon, United Kingdom “The arrow points only in the application that a living being makes of it.”– Ludwig Wittgenstein1 The language game Language is a fascinating concept when viewed through a philosophical lens. Imagine if we no longer had a word for jealousy. Would that mean such a thing could no longer exist? Jealousy…

  • Lost in translation

    Jonathan XianHouston, Texas, United States At the start of residency, you should make a list of five things you value most and think carefully about which ones you can live without. Cross them off one by one until only one is left, and that one is what you get to keep. My one thing was…

  • Signs

    Jack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “This is no way to treat soldiers!” The lieutenant colonel was furious as he screamed at me over the phone. After sufficient venting had occurred, I ventured a nonthreatening interjection. “Colonel, I was not there. Tell me what happened with your soldier.” The lieutenant colonel’s battalion has just completed…