Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: India

  • Timelessness of the intangible

    Bill WolakNew Jersey, United States Born in 1943, Dileep Jhaveri is one of the most dynamic and articulate poets writing in India today. Like the Czech poet Miroslav Holub, his poetry mixes the objectivity of a scientist with an indefatigable lyricism. For Jhaveri, poetry is a theatre of ideas, emotions, and theoretical propositions. Dileep Jhaveri…

  • Lifeline Express: the magic train hospital of India

    Satish SarosheIndore, India, United States Lifeline Express, colloquially known as the Magic Train Hospital of India, is the world’s first modern technologically advanced hospital-train. Established in 1991 and completing twenty-three years of service, it has travelled the length and breadth of the country, bringing medical aid and relief to the remotest and most inaccessible areas…

  • The Christian Medical College Hospital, Vellore

    Preeti ShanbagMumbai, India  The Christian Medical College Hospital was founded by Ida Sophia Scudder in 1900, in response to a calling. Daughter of a North American missionary couple working in India, she was born in Tindivanum in south India in 1870. Her earliest experiences of India were of the terrible famine of the 1880s and…

  • Ethical dilemmas in surrogacy

    Ragini KulkarniMaharashtra, India Motherhood is the most beautiful and divine gift to a woman. Every woman has a dream and a natural instinct that she will become a mother and nurture a baby. Unfortunately for some couples fulfilling this dream becomes impossible due to medical reasons. In such cases the concept of surrogacy has evolved…

  • Out of the medicine cabinet: An out doctor in a closeted country

    Anirban ChatterjeeDilshad Garden, Delhi, India Earlier this year, having planned an interview-based analysis of the issues faced by transgender (LGBT) medical professionals acquiring medical education in India, I started contacting medical students and professionals in the LGBT community. Since I myself am a part of this community, I was able to locate them quite easily.…

  • Remembering an uncrowded world

    Aroop MangalikAlbuquerque, New Mexico, United States I was born in the year of the Elephant – an auspicious year according to the elders – with 30 other million born in that year. My father had hopes for me, hopes that I would see what he did not, achieve what he could not, and enjoy comforts…

  • Risus sardonicus

    Arunachalam KumarMangalore, India There is a pithy adage that goes around in medical circles, “Those who can – DO, those who can’t – TEACH.” Comments like this notwithstanding, some still commit their professional lives to medical teaching as an attractive and rewarding career option. But, who of rational mind, one may ask, would choose anatomy…

  • The boys who did not come back from the brink

    Ravi ShankarLalitpur, Nepal Lying unconscious on the stone floor, the 14-year-old boy bled profusely from a huge slash across his chest. Ram laughed, the sound resembling the screeching gears of a heavily loaded truck groaning slowly uphill. I frantically tried to staunch the flow of blood with towels and clothes—Ram’s maniacal laughter an incongruous accompaniment—as…

  • The patient on the brink

    Ravi ShankarNepal The St. Xavier’s hospital in the village of Ellakkal is in a magnificent location nestled in the Western Ghats of the Idukki district in the Southern Indian state of Kerala. The Ghats are a series of hills that reach about 2,000 meters high and run parallel to India’s west coast around 75 kilometers…

  • Ida Sophia Scudder

    Angela JosephNew Delhi, India This article is dedicated to the loving memory of my mother, Dr. A.C. Ammini. Born in India in 1870, Ida Sophia Scudder belonged to a missionary family. Her grandfather, Dr. John Scudder, was the first medical missionary from the United States to work overseas; and each of his seven sons contributed…