Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Empathy

  • Scars

    Morgan AlexanderDayton, Ohio, United States “I see you’ve got some scars here,” the doctor said, gesturing to two faint, thin lines that ran down both sides of the patient’s neck. “What’s that about?” The patient in the room with us was covered in scars across his neck and abdomen. Hesitantly, he confessed that the scars…

  • Maintaining a moral compass in medicine

    Jeffrey LeePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States It seemed like just another day during my third-year surgical rotation until I heard Mrs. W. cry. It was during daily rounds in the bustling ICU, and our team was squeezed around a single computer outside another patient’s room. I tried my best to pay attention to our discussion, but…

  • Yes, I’m positive

    George W. ChristopherAda, Michigan, United States A quick glance at the afternoon clinic schedule revealed that the next patient was scheduled to “Rule out HIV infection.” I knocked on the door, entered the exam room, and began introductions. The patient was young, anxious, and struggling to maintain a stoic façade. “I have HIV infection.” “Are…

  • Healing in post-genocide Rwanda

    Vigneshwar SubramanianNivetha SubramanianCleveland, Ohio, United States In April 1994, one of the largest genocides since the Holocaust erupted in Rwanda as the Hutu ethnic majority conducted a targeted slaughter of the Tutsi people.1 In a span of just over 100 days, over 800,000 people were killed.2 Infectious diseases such as HIV ran rampant, a consequence…

  • Provider empathy: a patient’s tale

    Jacklyn MunnArlington, Virginia, United States In the practice of medicine, empathy may be the greatest prescription of all. It can provide a patient with confidence, comfort, and the understanding that their healthcare provider knows them as an individual, not just a series of diagnoses and treatments. It creates an opportunity for providers to establish trust…

  • Grokking: Cardiac rehabilitation by another name

    Janice KehlerChris KehlerMiddleton, Wisconsin, United States “It is a life-saving intervention,” said Dr. Randall Thomas, the director of the Cardiac Rehabilitation Program at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, adding that participation rates were abysmal. Only 20% of eligible patients over the age of sixty-five enroll in cardiac rehabilitation programs, which is a troubling proclamation in…

  • Empathy for medical students

    David JeffreyEdinburgh, United Kingdom On a windy corner of Drummond Street, not far from Rutherford’s pub in Edinburgh, there is a small bronze plaque with these words: “And when I remembered all that I hoped and feared as I pickled about Rutherford’s in the rain and the east wind; how I feared I should be…

  • Portrait of nursing

    Lynda SlimmerChicago, Illinois, United States Using your mind’s eye, imagine a painting that my husband and I bought several years ago in the Smokey Mountains. An old-fashioned, wooden, crank-type ice cream maker rests in the foreground surrounded by heaps of fresh red strawberries and lava-like streams of thick, pink, strawberry ice cream frothing out of…

  • Literature in medical school: Why, how, and if

    Tabitha SparksMontreal, Canada Do literature courses in medical school make better doctors? Will the doctors be more sensitive, display more empathy? If so, how is this achieved? And what is the evidence it does so? Since 1980 many educators have supported the integration of humanities coursework into medical school curricula. One widespread claim has been…

  • Shadowing Artists on the Wards: an undergraduate, arts-based medical elective

    Pamela Brett-MacLeanMichelle CasavantShirley ServissAlyssa CruzEdmonton, Canada Medicine is frequently described as both an art and science, with science focused on objective, technical knowledge (competency, or cure) and the artistic elements focused on the human side of medicine (empathy, or care). Herman (2001), among others, has suggested artistic and scientific activity converge, suggesting that “when an…