Tag: New York
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The Last Angry Man: A caged eagle
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Still from The Last Angry Man. From the Collection of African American film materials at the Southern Methodist University Library. © 1959, renewed 1987 Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc. All Rights Reserved. galoot: an awkward or uncouth fellow. – Oxford English Dictionary galoot: someone who thinks the world owes him a…
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Business as usual
David Blitzer New York, New York, United States Inauguración del Hospital Municipal de Chiconcuac. 2016. Photo by Presidencia de la República Mexicana. Via Flickr. CC BY 2.0. Clarissa Myers arrived at the hospital at the usual time on Monday morning. She walked past her assistant, strode into her office, and sat at her desk,…
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The Call of the Wild and COVID-19
Liam Butchart Stony Brook, New York, United States Samantha Rizzo Washington DC, United States Winter Scene in Moonlight. Henry Farrer. 1869. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The COVID-19 pandemic has wrought a terrible toll upon all of us and has brought the medical system—and the providers who inhabit it—to its knees. There is a…
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Moral judgment in medicine: “sensibility of heart”
Jack Coulehan Stony Brook, New York, United States Clinicians in Intensive Care Unit. 2011. Photo by Calleamanecer. Via Wikimedia. CC BY-SA 3.0 I want to reflect on the role of emotions, or “sensibility of heart,” in medical judgment. I take the term “judgment,” in general, to refer to the human capacity of assessing, analyzing,…
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A walk with giants
Herbert Ausubel Valley Stream, New York, United States Herbert Ausubel HMS making rounds with Dr. Eliot Joslin the morning after Dr. Joslin underwent an appendectomy. Drawing by Dr. Ernest Greenberg and Louise Chiasson. Having had the opportunity to receive a medical education at Harvard Medical School, I was exposed to several individuals who were…
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The derailment of Franklin Pierce
Jacob Appel New York, New York, United States Few subjects have attracted as much attention from medical historians, both well-founded and speculative, as the health of United States presidents. Considerable debate exists over the extent of impairment caused by Lincoln’s bouts of melancholia,1 Grant’s alcoholism,2 Wilson’s stroke,3 and Coolidge’s depression4—to name only those chief executives from…
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In praise of swimming: from Benjamin Franklin to Oliver Sacks
James L. Franklin Chicago, Illinois, United States Oliver Sacks as a young child with his father. Courtesy of the Oliver Sacks Foundation. Benjamin Franklin (1706–1790) was not a physician, but many thought he was so-trained and referred to him as “Doctor” Franklin. After accepting an honorary doctorate from the University of St. Andrews in…
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Tendon reflex hammers
JMS Pearce East York, England Fig 1. Wintrich hammer cropped from Semantics Scholars The vogue for reflex hammers started with Erb and Westphal’s adjacent papers1,2 in the 1875 issue of the Archiv für Psychiatrie und Nervenkrankheiten, which described the tendon or muscle stretch reflex. Wilhelm Heinrich Erb (1840-1921) read medicine at Heidelberg where he…
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Using Latin to settle medical pronunciation debates
Raymond Noonan Brooklyn, New York, United States Author’s note: Original Latin words are written in italics, with macrons (ā) indicating long vowels. Equivalent Latin-derived medical terms are given without italics. Acute accents (á) are sometimes used to indicate stress accent in both English and Latin. Informal phonetic spelling that should be familiar to most…
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Being our best selves: hidden in full view
James Stoller Peter Rea Alan Kolp Cleveland, Ohio, United States Figure 1. Pillars and pediment We live in a paradox framed by a tension between age-old wisdom about excellence and our current state. The paradox is this: our behaviors and our priorities are often at odds with age-old truths about how we can be…