Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Hektorama

  • Who do I look like?

    Farrin A. ManianBoston, Massachusetts, United States As physicians, we are often valued by our patients for our compassion, medical knowledge, and skills in managing diseases and restoring health. Physical attributes such as facial features are not supposed to have an appreciable impact on our professional relationship with our patients. But what happens when a patient…

  • Provident Hospital – the first Black owned and operated medical institution in the United States

    Raymond H. CurryVeeLa Sengstacke GonzalesChicago, Illinois, United States Prior to 1891 there was not in this country a single hospital or training school for nurses owned and managed by colored people . . . there are now twelve! . . . and not a single failure in the effort!– Daniel Hale Williams, 19001 Emma Reynolds, a…

  • Michael Reese Hospital — Neighborhoods and patients

    Excerpts from the book All Our Lives: A Centennial History of Michael Reese Hospital and Medical Center, 1881-1981, Sarah Gordon, ed. Related articles Michael Reese Hospital – BeginningsMichael Reese Hospital – Nurses, interns, and residentsMichael Reese Hospital – PhysiciansMichael Reese Hospital – PediatricsMichael Reese Archive: Comments from our readers Fall 2013 | |

  • Cincinnati Children’s Hospital

    Carolyn LipchikOhio, United States “The dean of the College of Medicine recalled Dr. Mitchell looking over blueprints and declaring, ‘We’ll have something here. There’ll be nothing like it in the world.’”1 Cincinnati Children’s Hospital Medical Center (CCHMC) has a long history of commitment to medical research. Leadership in the 1920s modernized the hospital and infused…

  • Humanities at the heart of healthcare

    Victoria BonebakkerPortland, Maine, United States Imagine doctors, nurses, receptionists, trustees, administrators, lab techs and physician assistants, books in hand, sitting in a hospital conference room, cafeteria or lounge. With a humanities scholar serving as a facilitator, they are discussing the novel, short story or poem they have read, and reflecting together on what it means…

  • Lament to measles

    Nazan BilgelBursa, Turkey I am the sorrowful, dull winter sunResting silently on the naked branches of the treesWarming and soothingVillages, roads, and mountain stones.I saw a village far awayBehind the mountains, you couldn’t know So described the poet Ceyhun Atuf Kansu himself when he saw so many dying children because of measles.1 Although a simple preventable…

  • A view of syphilis from the 19th century

    Sectional reprint of “Of the Venereal Disease, or Syphilis” from Modern Practice of Physic by Robert Thomas, 1822 The part of the world where this disease first originated has been much disputed, some looking upon it as of French extraction, and others supposing it could have been brought from America by the soldiers of Christopher…

  • Arthur Wohlmann and the Rotorua Health Spa

    Stewart CameronHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Dr. Arthur Stanley Wohlmann played a pivotal role in the history of New Zealand despite his great project being a calamity. Even his discipline lost stature, yet Wohlmann himself retains a positive reputation in history. In the late 1800s, the British colony of New Zealand was promoting tourism as it…

  • Muslim women healers of the medieval and early modern Ottoman Empire

    Nada DarwishAlan S. WeberDoha, Qatar Although known only through court documents, legal proceedings, and references in the writings of male practitioners, the tabiba—a female practitioner of folk medicine, midwifery, and gynecology—was an important member of the medical community in the Ottoman Empire (1299–1923). The existing historical record unfortunately obscures the important role that women physicians, nurses,…