Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Intensive Care Unit

  • Wedding anniversary

    Paul Rousseau Charleston, South Carolina, United States Woman treating a patient in an intensive care unit. U.S. Government photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Ryan M. Breeden. U.S. Navy Medicine on Rawpixel. Public domain.   Things fall apart; the center cannot hold…and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned… — W. B. Yeats, The…

  • Things to think

    Dean Gianakos Lynchburg, Virginia, United States   Detail of: A crossword fanatic ringing up a doctor in the middle of the night to find the answer to a clue. Line block after D.L. Ghilchilp, 1925. Credit: Wellcome Collection. Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) Think in ways you’ve never thought before. If the phone rings,…

  • How to save a life

    Sam Campbell Moh’D Ibrahim Johnson City, Tennessee, United States   “We had been happy together, though it took years to convince her family to allow us to marry.” My wife is in Texas, threatening to file divorce papers. I am here, 996 miles away, trying to find Mrs. Smith who has wandered out of her…

  • The Korean soldier

    Charles Halsted Davis, California, United States   Korean War, train attack. 1950. US Army Military History Institute. Public Domain. A fifty-five-year-old Korean man arrived at the emergency room of our teaching hospital after suddenly vomiting blood during the night. Called next morning to consult in our intensive care unit, I reviewed his chart and pulled…

  • Snakes and ladders

    Shampa Sinha Sydney, Australia   Life in the ICU is like a game of Snakes and Ladders. Illustration by Dr. Tirthankar Dutta “Can you tell me where you are, Mr. Pemberton?” I would ask the middle-aged man every morning as he was recovering from abdominal surgery. “Oh, I’m in New York,” he would answer with…

  • One year infirmed in USA & Japan: Differing practices in stroke rehabilitation

    Laurel Kamada Hirosaki-shi, Aomori-ken, Japan   The author mother visiting her in the Intensive Care Unit after the stroke.  After surviving a massive hemorrhagic stroke five years ago, I spent half a year in stroke rehabilitation hospitals in each of two different countries. I stayed in hospitals and nursing homes in the United States before my…