Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hekint

  • Epidemics from plague to Coronavirus

    Michael YafiHouston, Texas, United States Throughout history humanity has faced many epidemics and pandemics that caused panic and massive casualties. Although in modern times pathogens have shifted from bacteria to viruses, each new epidemic brings back fears of diseases from the past such as bubonic plague, cholera, typhoid, and leprosy. Society has usually responded to…

  • Ferdinand Sauerbruch, father of thoracic surgery

    Annabelle SlingerlandLeon LacquetLeiden, the Netherlands Ferdinand Sauerbruch (1875-1951) was one of the most important thoracic surgeons of the first half of the twentieth century, remembered for pioneering a method that would allow access to the thoracic cavity and the heart. Three years after his death in 1954, his life was detailed in a movie authored…

  • Aniza

    Eleonore Blaurock-BuschGermany I miss my people and my home,but don’t send me back. I don’t have a passport,no papers. Dad gave them to my husband-to-be,the one who couldn’t take me now,and I am not sad about it. I am crying about my sister.They cut her up, sewed her tightand her fat, old husband, he likes…

  • Are we culturally tone-deaf?

    Clara KooNew York, United States The cultural norms of American medicine are speciously like those of traditional Korean culture, but the differences place Korean-American students at a disadvantage. When I began my third year of medical school, a fourth-year student advised, “Just do what you can do be useful.” If there is anything I know…

  • Theme

    HONORING THE WORK OF THE RED CROSS Published on May, 2020 H E K T O R A M A     .   ALL BLOOD RUNS RED Clara Barton The American Red Cross (ARC) is an independent, neutral organization ensuring humanitarian protection and assistance for victims of armed conflict and other disasters. Based on…

  • An unseen border

    T.Y. EulianoGainesville, Florida, United States “Please let me have the chest pain in 3,” I said. “I can’t take any more whiny kids today.” Clare raised an eyebrow. “You can have the next trauma.” “Two traumas,” she said. “I can’t stand any more whiny parents.” “Deal.” She wrote my initials by Room 3. “Remind me…

  • Heterozygous advantage: How one deadly disease prevents another

    Neal KrishnaBoston, Massachusetts, United States Of all the genetic disorders to which man is known to be a victim, there is no other that presents an assemblage of problems and challenges quite comparable to sickle cell anemia. Because of its ubiquity, chronicity, and resistance to treatment, sickle cell anemia remains a malady whose mitigation and…

  • Theme

    EPIDEMICS Published in March, 2020 H E K T O R A M A   . The recent coronavirus outbreak inevitably brings to mind the Spanish flu, the deadly influenza pandemic of a century ago. Here we republish seven articles about this devastating viral disease that spread to the four corners of the world, killing…

  • John Arbuthnot: physician, wit, and creator of John Bull

    JMS PearceHull, England, United Kingdom In the light of recent British parliamentary chaos, by chance I discovered this irresistible quotation: “All political parties die at last of swallowing their own lies”-John Arbuthnot At a time when in most westernized countries physicians and many others are disenchanted by politicians’ self-aggrandizement and expansionist policies, this little aphorism…

  • Letting go of logic

    Nimisha BajajColumbus, Ohio, United States “He’s here for aspiration pneumonia. He doesn’t want a G-tube even though we tried to explain to him that if he continues to eat and drink by mouth, this will keep happening and he will eventually die from it. Can you come down and see him?” The palliative care fellow,…