Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: New York

  • Ahab’s gift: Herman Melville’s Moby Dick and the meaning of pain

    Xi ChenRochester, New York, United States In the summer months before my first year of medical school, I unfurled the pages of Moby Dick. Immersed in the novel’s adventurous spirit and Shakespearean prose, I followed the narrator from the piers of Nantucket into the Atlantic and waded through Captain Ahab’s quest for the legendary white…

  • The search for Eisenhower’s adrenal tumor

    Kevin R. LoughlinBoston, Massachusetts, United States For most Americans, the knowledge of Dwight Eisenhower’s health history is limited to the fact that he had a serious heart attack while president. However, a seemingly casual comment by a non-physician political scientist, Robert E. Gilbert, in his book The Mortal Presidency: Illness and Anguish in the White…

  • Dr. Peabody, the ideal medical practitioner

    Rachel BrightKevin QosjaLiam ButchartStony Brook, New York, United States Art not only imitates nature, but completes its deficiencies.—Aristotle, Physics A common complaint about medical students, doctors, and healthcare providers is that the scientific and technological progress of the last few decades has led them to neglect meaningful interactions, leaving patients bereft of the human touch—with…

  • The hunt for a yellow fever therapy

    Edward McSweegenKingston, Rhode Island, United States In March 2020, a research group in China reported the use of convalescent plasma to treat ten patients suffering from coronavirus COVID-19 infections.1 This type of therapy—passive immunization—dates back to 1891 when the German bacteriologist Emil von Behring used horse serum containing diphtheria antitoxin antibodies to treat a patient…

  • Karl Landsteiner and the discovery of blood groups

    Safia BenaissaMostganem, Algeria Karl Landsteiner was the Austrian scientist who recognized that humans had different blood groups and made it possible for physicians to transfuse blood safely. He entered medical school at the University of Vienna, where he developed an interest in chemistry. After taking off a year to complete his military service he returned…

  • The smartest vampire story

    Alice TheibaultRochester, New York, United States There is something uniquely terrifying about vampires. The concept of a nocturnal creature showing up at one’s home to suck their blood is enough to make just about anyone uneasy, and so vampires have been mined as a horror device for generations. Bram Stoker’s Dracula, which is arguably the…

  • The sight of blood

    Joanne JacobsonNew York, New York, United States None of us live to adulthood without seeing our own blood—growing up, I witnessed my blood flow free of my body too many times to count. The bleeding knee picked clean of leaves and gravel after my father sent me spinning down the driveway on my birthday bike;…

  • History repeated: Child abuse in the United States

    Joseph deBettencourtChicago, Illinois, United States Q: Did you see any place for this child to sleep in?A: No, Sir, except in one corner. The child told me she slept up in one corner of the room under the window.Q: Did she show you where she slept?A: No, Sir.Q: Did she state what she slept on?A:…

  • Camus, Meursault, and the Biopsychosocial model

    Liam ButchartStony Brook, New York Since the development of medical literature studies in the 1970s, the field has grown and expanded in many fascinating ways.1 For example, courses in medical schools now encourage students to examine their own biases and emotional responses, and medical literature scholars emphasize the educational and clinical value of learning to…

  • The woman doctor as medical and moral authority: Helen Brent MD

    Carol-Ann FarkasBoston, Massachussetts, United States In the late nineteenth century, many women who dared to study and practice medicine tempered that radical move with the reassuring insistence that, by virtue of their sex, they could combine medical knowledge with feminine, maternal guidance for the physical and moral well-being of their patients. The gender essentialism of…