Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: lung cancer

  • Humanism in medicine

    Annie YehLouisiana, New Orleans, USA As medical students, we are taught the “art of medicine” and the importance of gathering a thorough patient history. “Ninety percent of your diagnosis comes from the history,” we are told. And to do so, we must establish a rapport with our patients. We enter the lives of patients at…

  • Patients bearing gifts

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece It is not uncommon for practicing clinicians to receive gifts of gratitude. Patients have their way of expressing their appreciation for whatever service they believe we offered them in the course of their health misadventures. The prevalence of gift-giving may vary with the healthcare system (state or private), the status and location…

  • Life is a game: visual metaphors in Brian Fies’s Mom’s Cancer

    Sathyaraj VenkatesanAnu Mary PeterTiruchirapalli, India Motivated by a “desire to give meaning to the lives lived in uncertainty”1 and illustrate the experience of enduring an illness, the creators of comics often resort to visual metaphors that render a patient’s physical and psychological experiences tangible.2,3 In Mom’s Cancer (2006) Brian Fies deploys a series of visual…