Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: DPD

  • “Do I look gay to you?”

    Elena HillNew York, United States When I first went to Tijuana to the US-Mexican border to volunteer as a physician, I was expecting to see women fleeing abuse, men escaping gang violence, and families pursuing a better life. I was not expecting to see a large LGBTQ population. In retrospect, it makes perfect sense that…

  • Cloaked in white

    Stacey MaslowFramingham, Massachusetts, United States Darkness envelops me. A sliver of light peeks beneath the door from the world beyond the hospital room. Through the window hilled silhouettes stand silent before a veiled black backdrop. My mind wanders to the image of morning in the town just waking below. Amidst the blackness faint numbers emerge…

  • My very own back pain

    Andrew BamjiRye, East Sussex, UK As a rheumatologist, now retired, I spent a good portion of my working life dealing with patients who had back pain. I reckoned over the course of thirty-three years in the specialty that I had back pain largely nailed. I developed an algorithm which enabled me to determine, with what…

  • Learning about children

    Canon BrodarMiami, Florida, United States I began my first clinical rotation excited but fearful. Medical students are taught about pediatric pathology and developmental milestones, but nothing about working with children and their families. I had heard the constant refrain that “children are not just little adults” but as I started preparing for pediatrics, I had…

  • Great expectations

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece “Doctor, I want you to treat her as a forty-year old!” What is the appropriate answer to a demand like that from a daughter about the treatment of her eighty-eight-year-old mother? Any suggestion that her mother might not do well even with the best treatment in the world is anathema to her.…

  • A dog like that

    Rebecca OsbornNew Haven, Connecticut, United States “You ever seen a dog like that?” I smile and shake my head. Tony sips his black coffee, his eyes lingering on the open doorway. “What a dog. What a beautiful dog. Most dogs, they try and bite you. This dog? Wouldn’t stop kissin’ me. What a dog.” Tony…

  • Applause: Reflections on The Plague and being a doctor in a pandemic

    Roger Ruiz MoralUniversidad Francisco de Vitoria. Madrid, Spain “I imagine then what the plague must be for you.Yes, – said Rieux – an endless defeat.”1 The COVID-19 lockdown is today in its fifth week. In my country, Spain, these measures have been especially severe. I am confined to my house despite being a physician, since…

  • Letting go of logic

    Nimisha BajajColumbus, Ohio, United States “He’s here for aspiration pneumonia. He doesn’t want a G-tube even though we tried to explain to him that if he continues to eat and drink by mouth, this will keep happening and he will eventually die from it. Can you come down and see him?” The palliative care fellow,…

  • From enigma to Jeremy

    Ami Schattner Jerusalem, Israel One day each week I leave my hospital to serve as a consultant in ambulatory internal medicine. General practitioners from the area refer difficult patients to me, and thus my encounters vary from the very simple to the most challenging diagnostic riddles. Rachel belonged to the latter. This elderly lively lady…

  • The big question

    Monica MaaloufChicago, Illinois, USA “Doctor, why are we here?” I had just finished answering her questions about her insulin dosing and was crouched down, examining her foot rash, when I looked up at Mrs. Syed, feebly trying to mask my annoyance. “Well, these are just the rooms where my evening clinic is on Tuesdays,” I…