Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: doctors patients and disease

  • Young, pretty, and not quite right

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   Photo by Anthony Papagiannis. Unless we are in pediatrics, we start in clinical practice with our patients tending to be in the age range of our parents, or even older. Increasingly, as the grey in our temples is promoted to silver, their mean age gets closer to ours, and the…

  • Beyond medicine

    Jessica Tang Chicago, Illinois, United States   Surgeons in action I remember staring intently at the doctor as he presented two options: surgery or do nothing. Surgery could not promise drastic improvement and even came with the risk of paralysis or death. Doing nothing meant an ominous future of moving onward until something traumatic occurred.…

  • Reflections on the practice of treatment for drug dependence

    Carla Treloar Australia   Photography by Christina B. Castro The funeral was on a stifling January day in Sydney. The formal, stiff clothes I had put on that morning were damp and limp within minutes outside the air-conditioned car. I greeted the few people I knew who were milling outside the chapel awaiting the arrival…