Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: joy

  • The names of things

    Joseph HodappCupertino, California, USA It’s a gray-sky, late-October afternoon. I just got home from work when I feel my phone buzz in my pocket. The caller ID provides a brief preface: Mom. “Hey Mom, what’s up?” “Hey Hun, I wanted to call you right away… my mom had a stroke this morning.” Her words are…

  • Rethinking the impulse to empathize: a sister’s perspective on sympathy and stigma

    Jeanne FarnanPennsylvania, United States “I am so sorry.” My youngest sister, Annie, was born during the spring semester of my first year of high school. These four words are etched into my memory, integrally intertwined with the events of that spring. “I am so sorry.” I remember these words so clearly because they clashed dramatically…