Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: mortality

  • Book review: Why We Die: The New Science of Ageing and the Quest for Immortality

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England The subjects of ageing, death, and immortality have long preoccupied human thoughts and culture. The ancient Egyptians practiced mummification out of a belief in an afterlife. Buddhists and Hindus believe in reincarnation with the immortal soul living on in another body. Christianity, Judaism, and Islam also have rites and rituals that…

  • Bone headdress

    Susan SampleSalt Lake City, Utah, United States After artwork created by a person with cancer Why tens of bones linkedwith silver chain intoan earthly veil? I gaze at other entries:hand-stitched quiltswith undulating seams. I am accustomedto O’Keeffe’s paintingof the lone cow skull; Ezekiel’s storyof dry, disconnectedbones strewn in a valley until divine breathbinds bone to…

  • The proximity of death

    Paul C. RosenblattSt. Paul, Minnesota, United States In September 1951, I was a very sick twelve-year-old, covered with bruises and red dots where blood vessels were leaking. My nose had been bleeding for days and nothing we did stopped it. My blood was not clotting. The morning my mother took me to the University Hospital…

  • Goals of care

    Leah Grant Portland, Oregon It was the beginning of my intern year and I felt like an impostor. Facing new responsibilities in both the hospital and clinic, I was aware of my lack of experience when patients asked for my medical opinion. But as I began to see the same patients again and again in the…

  • Emily, Usher, and American Gothic perspectives on mortality

    Olga ReykhartLiam ButchartStony Brook, New York, United States In an editorial for Medical Humanities, Gillie Bolton notes that death is a common theme in literature and also in medicine. She writes, “Death, dying, and bereavement are dark threads running through all literature. Not only are they life’s sole certainties, along with birth; they are also…

  • Gilgamesh and medicine’s quest to conquer death

    Anika KhanKarachi, Pakistan “O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I go?A thief has taken hold of my [flesh!]For there in my bed-chamber Death does abide,and wherever [I] turn, there too will be Death.”—From The Epic of Gilgamesh, The Standard Version, Tablet XI1 “O Uta-napishti, what should I do and where should I…

  • Unfinished business: End of life care and regrets in the films of Akira Kurosawa

    X.M. GriffithsTuckahoe, NY, USA Death and mortality were recurrent themes in Akira Kurosawa’s works but the director examined the issues most acutely in the films Ikiru (1952) and Madadayo (1993). Though the two films hail from different periods of his career, in each the main character is forced to face their own mortality, which provides…

  • Breathing

    Laura Anne WhiteRochester, MN, USA Author’s statement: I wrote this poem on a piece of scrap paper around five am, towards the end of a night shift. About fifteen minutes after coming into work that evening, a patient of mine who had been somnolent struggled to breathe. Moments like this have a way of grounding…