Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: IED

  • They don’t teach us that

    Evelyn PotochnyHershey, Pennsylvania, United States You called in your own medevac. You’d even tourniqueted both legs, or what was left of them. And when the Chinook kicked up all that dust and finally landed, you looked so—calm. Someone read each name and the litany of injuries while we watched each stretcher pass by, yours included—a…

  • Shrapnel

    Christopher J. SchayerNew Haven, Connecticut His gloved hand grazed lightly the bulbous edges of my abdominal scars. My entire left flank, once lean and muscular, is now rippled with nodules of scar tissue and adhesions. I was not his average patient and as his fingers traversed the lumpy terrain of my abdomen, he began to…