Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: pathophysiology

  • Learning the vocabulary of medicine (and other foreign languages)

    Edward Tabor Bethesda, Maryland, United States   Some of the sources of medical vocabulary. Photo by author. Both of my parents were physicians, and their discussions were often medical. One weekend when I was about four years old, I listened to one such conversation at lunch and interrupted to ask, “When I grow up, will…

  • Jorge Luis Borges: Brilliant blindness

    Nicolas Roberto Robles Badajoz, Spain   Penumbra de la paloma llamaron los hebreos a la iniciación de la tarde cuando la sombra no entorpece los pasos y la venida de la noche se advierte como una música esperada y antigua, como un grato declive. Twilight of the dove the Hebrews called the initiation of the…

  • Burnout: Are we looking at it through the wrong lens?

    Elizabeth Cerceo Camden, New Jersey, United States   The Exhausted Ragpicker. Jean François Raffaëlli. 1880. The Art Institute of Chicago. The epidemic of burnout seems to afflict ever more populations as it insidiously creeps into the workplace of everyone from nurses to teachers, from medical students to seasoned clinicians, from Amazon to Apple. As physicians,…

  • Verdi and Velázquez: perceptive sensitization in clinical medical education

    Daniel V. Schidlow Florence Gelo Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   “Observe, record, tabulate, communicate. Use your five senses. Learn to see, learn to hear, learn to feel, learn to smell and know that by practice alone you can become expert.” —Sir William Osler (1849–1919)   A group of third-year medical students enters the office, anxious…

  • Neuroanatomy: a transition in understanding and observation

    Charlene Ong St.Louis, Missouri, United States   Western medicine’s understanding of neuroanatomy over the last several millennia has reflected the dynamic cultural values and social norms regarding the human body and its function. The journey that culminated in accurate and reproducible representations of the brain required a tolerance of human inquiry, advances in preservation technology,…