Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Education

  • Grand rounds

    André Brouillet illustration of “Une leçon clinique à la Salpêtrière.” In the days when medical teaching took place mainly at the bedside, grand rounds were the accepted method by which rare or interesting cases were demonstrated to the entire hospital staff. It was a tradition that went back at least to the days of the…

  • Louis Braille: wondrous gift, punishing recipe

    Lauren HillWalnut Cove, North Carolina, United StatesJack RiggsMorgantown, West Virginia, United States “… as need, the mother of all inventions, taught them …”— Thomas Hobbs, from Leviathan Helen Keller is reputed to have said, “We the blind are as indebted to Louis Braille as mankind is to Gutenberg.”1 The life of Louis Braille (1809–1852), complete…

  • Neurophobia or neuroavoidance: a student or educator issue?

    Kelsey Andrews Jack Riggs  Morgantown, West Virginia, United States   “It is the supreme art of the teacher to awaken joy in creative expression and knowledge.” – Albert Einstein   The human brain – perhaps the most complex and interesting structure in the universe. That statement should make neuroscience a subject of attraction, not avoidance…

  • The “Ne-Uro” mess

    Nishitha Bujala Hyderabad, Telangana, India   Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash When I took my oral exams in the final year of medical school, I was tested on surgical instruments by an external professor. He appeared to be in his sixties and stern. As a conversation starter, he asked my favorite specialty. “Neurology,” I…

  • The good, the bad, and the regrettable

    Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden   “Man . . . cannot learn to forget, but hangs on the past: however far or fast he runs, that chain runs with him.” — Frederick Nietzsche   Lab coat and scrubs. Photo by Samir. 2006. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. What follows is a description of different aspects of…

  • Novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital in 1964

    Hugh Tunstall-PedoeDundee, Scotland, United Kingdom Initiation My initiation as a novice doctor at Guy’s Hospital, London (Fig 1) was as junior partner to the legendary King of Surgery and Queen of Nursing. It was 1964. Clinical students in London medical schools with first degrees at Cambridge University went back there for their final exams, predominantly…

  • The “weak” intern

    Htet Khine Reno, Nevada, United States   Photo by Marcelo Leal on Unsplash “She is quite weak,” I overheard two senior residents say about one of my co-interns. I tried to tune out the conversation—I did not have enough time or mental capacity to comprehend what being “weak” entailed. I was busy writing notes, answering…

  • Healing literature

    Scott D. Vander Ploeg Cocoa Beach, Florida, United States   Dr. Vander Ploeg (Ph.D.) checks the lit pressure of the complete works of William Shakespeare published in The Riverside Shakespeare. Photo by Audrey Kon. Courtesy of the author. I taught English courses for thirty years at a community college in western Kentucky. One of the…

  • An essential attitude of the heart

    Florence Gelo Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Andy Warhol, 1970. By Alice Neel. Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; gift of Timothy Collins. Digital image © Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala / Art Resource, NY I project an image of the painting, Andy Warhol, on the screen in the medical school classroom.…

  • The use of television series in medical education

    Gulmira Derbissalina Nur-Sultan city, Kazakhstan   “House M.D.” by showbiz kids is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0 Medically themed television series are popular among future doctors. Students and trainees can imagine their future work, including the clinical setting, relationships with colleagues and superiors, communication with patients and their relatives, and consultations and advice from senior…