Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Matko Marusic

  • Learning medicine by writing letters

    Matko MarušićCroatia It was Tony, a learned doctor from the USA, who gave me the idea of having students write letters to their patients. He mentioned he had first heard about this some sixty years ago at Yale. At first he did not take seriously my immediate elation and determination to introduce it at the…

  • Studying medicine

    Matko MarusicCroatia The author studied medicine from 1965 to 1970, at the Zagreb University School of Medicine, the capital city of Croatia, in the country that at that time was called Yugoslavia. It was under communist rule (until 1990). The home town of the author is Split, on the Adriatic coast, some 200 miles south…

  • Children do not die

    Matko MarusicCroatia Josip was just one of the boys who lived in our street, but to me he was and still is especially important. It was through him that I, for the first time, encountered an incurable disease; he was the first person I wanted to help, and was unable to. Later in my life,…

  • Coronary heart disease

    Matko MarusicCroatiaTranslated by Dalibora Behmen Heart attack One night, Ivo felt a strong pressure in his chest. It was followed by fear and panic. He knew at once what had caused this catastrophe, and spoke of it dispassionately and with the technical precision of an engineer who is sick. The cause was the choke in…

  • Gynecology and obstetrics

    Matko MarusicCroatia This essay is reprinted from Medicine from Inside (Medicina iznutra) by Matko Marusic, 2006, and translated from Croatian into English by Dr. Mario Malicki. A mountain farmer’s voice reached me from the window of the student hall: “We cannot play on Saturday.” I could not believe it! I had arranged for a soccer…