Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Empathy

  • Scars

    Morgan Alexander Dayton, Ohio, United States   Taylor by Lauren Henschel. 2011. Part of the Indelible documentary series. “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…

  • Maintaining a moral compass in medicine

    Jeffrey Lee Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   “The Doctor.” Painting by Sir Luke Fildes, 1891. Location: Tate Gallery, London Fildes the doctor 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…

  • Yes, I’m positive

    George W. Christopher Ada, Michigan, United States     Early tests for HIV were highly sensitive but often gave false-positive results. The Western blot introduced in 1987 still gave 10-20% indeterminate results. Newer tests have improved accuracy and accessibility. Image from US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A quick glance at the afternoon clinic…

  • Healing in post-genocide Rwanda

    Vigneshwar Subramanian Nivetha Subramanian Cleveland, Ohio, United States   The Apotheosis of War, Vasily Vereshchagin (1871) 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…

  • Provider empathy: a patient’s tale

    Jacklyn Munn Arlington, 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…

  • 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 Jeffrey Edinburgh, United Kingdom   Medical students check blood glucose on a patient. 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…

  • Portrait of nursing

    Lynda Slimmer Chicago, Illinois, United States Sunday Treat by Robert Hayes   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,…

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

    Tabitha Sparks Montreal, Canada      Photography by studioapril1982 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.…

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

    Pamela Brett-MacLean Michelle Casavant Shirley Serviss Alyssa Cruz Edmonton, Canada   Shirley Serviss, Artist on the Wards, 2011 Stephen Wreakes, Medical Photographer. University of Alberta Hospital, Alberta Health Services, Edmonton. 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…