Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: pain management

  • Homeopathy: medicine or placebo?

    Shrestha SarafSutton Coldfield, UKSudarshan RamachandranBirmingham, UK Homeopathy, based on a pseudoscientific system of alternative medicine, was developed by German physician Samuel Hahnemann around 1790. The primary principle of homeopathy is “like cures like,” i.e., a substance that causes symptoms can also be used to remove those symptoms. The trigger for the development of this system…

  • Pain management

    Andrew YimHamden, Connecticut Once a month, Ada tells me about her pain and then I write a script for oxycodone. When Ada tires of my Spanish or I of her English, we use a phone interpreter until the delays and pauses wear us down and we switch back to our pidgin Spanglish. Some days she…

  • Pushing back into chaos

    Kyra McComasSalt Lake City, Utah, United States Pain is perhaps the most useful yet most feared human experience. It has been crucial to our evolutionary development, but the modern era has sought to expunge it. The New York Times has reported that scientists may be able to use the genes from a woman who feels…

  • Mainstreaming acupuncture in Chicago

    Frank YurasekChicago, Illinois, United States For sixteen years I drove seventy-eight miles round-trip to stick needles in addicts, alcoholics, violent offenders, and homeless women. I practiced acupuncture with vulnerable communities around Chicago and southern Wisconsin even though it was not considered mainstream in our culture. I knew it to be an important tool in the…