Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: drawing

  • Ellen Powell Tiberino’s The Operation

    Cody RitzPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States In the graphite drawing by the late Ellen Powell Tiberino titled The Operation (1980), a tangled chaos emanates from an operating table surrounded by medical professionals of varying expressions—the two closest of whom hunch over the mess of contraptions and viscera with claw-like hands. Another healthcare worker stares directly at…

  • A drawing created during World War I

    Tilman SauerbruchBonn, Germany A photograph of a drawing by Max Beckmann (1884-1950) of the surgeon Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1875-1951) has been hanging in my room since my student days (Fig. 1). At the top right there is a note: “To Prof. Sauerbruch in memory of the May 1915 M. Beckmann.” Beckmann was thirty-one years old at…

  • The two hemispheres of medicine

    Jeffrey LevineNew York, New York, United States I stared at the blank surface of my drawing pad, confused and frozen in fear. It was slightly larger than a sheet of typing paper but looked like it spread from horizon to horizon. The naked model sat leisurely, unashamed, her eyes fixed on a distant, imaginary cloud…