Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: MRI

  • Walter E. Dandy, one of the founders of neurosurgery

    Philip R. Liebson Chicago, Illinois, United States   Johns Hopkins, where Dandy studied. Photo by Lizardraley99, 2012. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 Three pioneers established the discipline of neurosurgery. They were the British surgeon Victor Horsley and the Americans Harvey Cushing and Walter Dandy. Both Americans were surgeons at Johns Hopkins Hospital and Dandy (1886-1946)…

  • Life lessons from death

    Pedro T. LimaRecife, Brazil “How would you like to die?” the professor asked without breaking eye contact. I averted my gaze to ponder the question, but no answers came to mind. “I’ve never thought about it. I guess that I would hope to be with people I love,” I stuttered, still collecting my thoughts. “You…

  • Broca’s Brains: A lesson in the importance of saving the history of neuroscience

    Richard Brown Halifax, NS, Canada Thalia Garvock-de Montbrun Montreal, QC, Canada   Figure 1. Brain of patient (Lelong) with aphasia studied by Broca. Photo taken by Richard Brown May 2017. Recent fires at the National Museum of Brazil and at the University of Cape Town in South Africa1,2 have shown the fragility of rare books,…

  • History of medicine in ancient India

    Keerthana Kalla Seattle, Washington, United States   Shushrut Statue In Patanjali Yogpeeth, Haridwar. Photo by Alokprasad. 2009. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0. The chronicle of medicine is the story of man’s struggle against illness. As early as 5000 BC, India developed a comprehensive form of healing called Ayurveda. Such traditional healing was first recorded between…

  • C. Miller Fisher: Stroke in the twentieth century

    Arpan K. Banerjee Solihull, UK   Stroke, in spite of its serious and widespread impact, had long received little interest from physicians. C. Miller Fisher, one of the twentieth century’s outstanding neurologists and researchers, revolutionized the management of stroke. In this well-researched and readable biography, Louis Caplan, a distinguished Harvard neurologist and former trainee of…

  • “The Blood Battle”: Using science to combat the fear of blood

    Kayla Peña Providence, Rhode Island   U.S. Air Force photo by Senior Airman Marcy Copeland/Released. Public domain. Forty years ago, the University of Michigan and Ohio State University competed in their first “Blood Battle.” Although typically known for their football rivalry, in 1982 the universities decided to expand their competition to see which school could…

  • The future of medicine

    Hannah Wilson Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States   Photo by Hannah Wilson “Nobody can be told what the matrix is, you have to see it for yourself. … Morpheus: If real is what you can feel, smell, taste and see, then ‘real’ is simply electrical signals interpreted by your brain,” Neo, The Matrix, 1999. Tomorrow was…

  • The god that I know

    Rae Brown Lexington, Kentucky, USA   When we start down the road toward medical school and residency, the idealists among us have a picture of the kind of physicians they will become. Our perception of the future rarely coincides with the reality that we often face. Ideally, principles that conflict with our own view of…

  • My son getting an MRI

    Bonnie SalomonLake Forest, Illinois, USA I sit in the hallway with old magazinesfrom last winter, listening to the buzzand chirp of the enormous magnetattracting and spinning his hydrogenprotons that were once part of me,ageless interstellar dust, the remainsof stars and galaxies that have cometo rest in his body, flat on the examtable.  I can do…