Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: healthcare

  • The Sufi healers of Sudan: Caring for those without care

    Ahmed Elhag Albany County, New York, United States Traditional medicine has been the dominant form of healthcare for much of human history. To many today, traditional medicine has been reduced to an occasional alternative to be used either in addition to or at times in place of conventional care. However, in several rural and secluded areas…

  • Twins

    John Graham-PoleClydesdale, Nova Scotia, Canada Why was she taken? While you remain to question me for your school project? Renee had a project. Her seventh-grade class had been set the task of composing an essay on some aspect of American society. She had settled on tackling the American healthcare system, and after some thought had…

  • Thank you notes

    Margaret MitchellBoston, Massachusetts, United States I wrote thank you notes after matching in my residency program, though I found I was thankful for things I had not anticipated. I began working with Dr. Langerman in my first year of medical school, both in clinical settings and research. In his letter, I wrote, “Thank you for…

  • Learning to heal

    Jeanne BrynerNora MazurNewton Falls, Ohio, United States Top pieced by Jeanne BrynerQuilting done by Nora Mazur Jeanne Bryner: Quilts are important in my Appalachian culture. Narratives of beauty and truth are pieced together, preserving family history. This quilt contains photos of a special family of international sisters and brothers in the nursing profession. Caring for…

  • A wider science

    Ahmad ShakeriHowsikan KugathasanToronto, Ontario, Canada Working at a Toronto harm reduction clinic helped reconcile my different points of view on drug addiction. In the classroom, I was a progressive-minded graduate student willing to apply research to improve health outcomes for people who use drugs. But on the street and the subway, my personal policy was…

  • Simulation-based education and training: The reproduction of expert knowledge from military to healthcare applications

    Marco LuchettiMilano, Italy Introduction Simulation can be defined as a technique or method to artificially reproduce the conditions of a phenomenon.1 Simulation-based training and education are designed to teach individuals the basic elements of a system by observing the results of actions or decisions through a feedback process generated by the simulation itself. Participants are…

  • The impact of technology on healthcare

    Singh YadavTamil Nadu, India Double doors swing open as paramedics rush a burn victim into the hospital’s Emergency Department. A nurse checks the patient’s pulse and vitals, while another takes a blood sample and deposits it to a nearby machine. A scanning device determines the wound size and depth and guides an attached 3D printer…

  • 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…

  • Health flash: Humanize medicine, the time is now

    Wali ZahidPakistan Having spent two weeks in Lahore hospitals watching my sister being treated for a fatal disease, I had time to think about some of the fundamental flaws of modern medical practice and education. I concluded that medical education and practice needed to change, and that I was going to start a global movement to humanize…