Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: DPD

  • Once a professor…

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   “Good morning, Professor.” Lake Kremasta, Greece. Photo by author. The elderly man I address by this title lies in bed, visibly weak and rather exhausted, a clean white sheet drawn up to his neck. He has been in the hospital for several days now, and the forced immobility has added…

  • Herbert William Page and the railway spine controversy

    Jonathan DavidsonDurham, North Carolina, United States The first passenger railway journey resulted in the death of a prominent British politician.1 During the 1830s and 1840s,2 railway travel became a popular means of transport in Victorian Britain. By the 1850s, it was clear that this revolutionary advance in transportation also caused many injuries that resulted in…

  • Learning the meaning of love

    Charlotte EliopoulosGlen Arm, Maryland, United States In the summer before my senior year in high school, I spent my vacation as a candy striper. In the sixties, this was an opportunity for young girls interested in nursing to serve as hospital volunteers and gain some insight into their career of choice. Being young and naïve—and…

  • The invisible manager

    Javishkar Reddy Johannesburg, South Africa   Photo by meo from Pexels When I was twelve, I was hit on the head by a cricket ball. A few days later, I had my first seizure. Over the years, I have had many attacks, which have resulted in three chipped teeth, a cracked skull, a dislocated shoulder,…

  • Spirituality in medicine

    Gautam Sen Kolkata, India   Doctor-patient bonhomie is beneficial for both. Photo by Thirdman on Pexels. Imagine a hospitalized patient in the advanced stages of a difficult disease. He wonders whether he will survive and, if he does, in what state he will spend the remainder of his life. Alone in bed, he sometimes finds…

  • Doctor-patient reunions

    Anthony Papagiannis  Thessaloniki, Greece   Sunset. Photo by Anthony Papagiannis The upper half of the face I could see behind the Covid-dictated mask did not tell me much, but the surname she gave rang a clear bell. I had seen several members of a family of the same name in the past, and looking into…

  • A confession from a patient of atopic dermatitis

    Yen-Hsiang Wang Taipei, Taiwan   Photo by the author I am one of the ten to twenty percent of people in the world with atopic dermatitis. Allergies to environmental factors such as dust mites and certain foods contribute to this condition. Immune function is also an important factor, as evidenced by immunoglobulin E (IgE) and…

  • Painting an ICU

    Mark Tan Northwest Deanery, England, United Kingdom   Claude Monet’s Japanese Bridge and Water Lilies from 1899. Princeton University Art Museum. Wikipedia. “[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…

  • Hispanic, Latin, Latino, Latina, or Latinx?

    Bernardo Ng Imperial County, California, United States   Hispanic/Latinx Heritage Month Celebration 2019. Photo by CSUF Photos. Via Flickr. CC BY-NC-SA 2.0. The first time I became aware of a scientific group using the term Latinx was in 2018 during a meeting in Austin, Texas. It is a gender-neutral alternative to Latino or Latina that…

  • Homeopathy: medicine or placebo?

    Shrestha Saraf Sutton Coldfield, UK Sudarshan Ramachandran Birmingham, UK   Samuel Christian Friedrich Hahnemann. Mezzotint by R. Woodman after G. E. Hering. Wellcome Collection. Public Domain Mark Homeopathy, based on a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine, was developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann around 1790. The primary principle of homeopathy is “like cures like,” i.e.,…