Tag: Hektorama
-
Scarred for life
Shanda McCutcheonCalgary, Alberta, Canada Most mornings I wake and it does not seem like it happened at all. Still half asleep, I step under the cascading waters of a warm shower without even thinking about it. Life does not seem much different than it did a year ago, except that then I was embarking on…
-
The health food crusade and the super-food saint: exploring the discourse of healthy eating
Alice RyrieManchester, United Kingdom In our increasingly secular society, the value of health is rising. Moral values that used to be dominated by religion are now a matter of health: “in many ways the church has been replaced by the gymnasium.”1 Due to the rising pressure to be healthy, new problems have arisen about what…
-
The Irish famine: catastrophe, diaspora, and redemption
Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States Tensions between the English and the Irish date back to at least the time of Prince John Lackland, who was made Lord of Ireland by his father, Henry II of England in 1177.1 Anti-Catholic sentiments were pronounced by Oliver Cromwell after his invasion of Ireland and following the massacre…
-
Butterfly day
Marsal SanchesBismarck, North Dakota, United States He did not believe that a black butterfly was an omen of death. It was just some old superstition he remembered hearing from his Brazilian babysitter many years before, sort of a South American banshee. Someone would see a black butterfly inside the house and, a few hours later,…
-
Shadow self
Anna ByrdLos Angeles, California, United States When was I was twenty-three years old and weighed ninety-eight pounds, I thought I was fat. I wanted to look like a model, except my hair was falling out, I was bleeding from my nose and ears in my sleep, I was always cold and wore baggy boys’ clothes,…
-
Learning anatomy in medical school
Peter H. BerczellerDordogne, France An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. On the second day of medical school, we were invited to meet the cadaver we would be working on for the next six months. I trooped up with the rest of the class into a large unheated space on the…
-
An emperor unclothed: The virtuous Osler
Patrick FiddesPaul A. KomesaroffMelbourne, Australia Apart from Hippocrates himself, William Osler was among the most praised physicians of all time. Like his Greek forerunner, Osler amassed a huge following of loyal supporters, for whom he could evidently do no wrong. One went so far as to suggest that Osler was: “the greatest physician of all…
-
How to treat a broken heart: An instruction guide
Kate BaggottOntario, Canada Human beings are callous creatures. We pursue our own agendas, desires, and happiness at the expense of those who would love us. We have all done it. We have all disputed the purity of another’s love. We have all had our hearts broken in turn. We all know this state; of mourning,…
-
Shackleton’s angel
Paul G. FirthBoston, Massachusetts, United States South Georgia Island is a tortured upheaval of mountain and glacier that falls in chaos to the jagged coastline of the South Atlantic Ocean.1 From thirty miles of this wind-blasted sub-Antarctic wilderness came walking on the afternoon of the 20 May 1916 “a terrible-looking trio of scarecrows,” soaked to…
-
Walt Whitman: A difficult patient
Jack CoulehanStony Brook, New York, United States On June 15, 1888, the following notice appeared in the New York Times under the headline AGED POET SUFFERS RELAPSE: Prof. William Osler, of the University of Pennsylvania, was summoned by telegraph this afternoon to go to Walt Whitman’s bedside. The aged poet had a relapse, and it…