Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: pediatrics

  • Fixed schedules and no kissing: Child rearing according to Drs. Holt and Watson

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Trust yourself. You know more than you think you do.”– Benjamin Spock, MD Child rearing “experts” first appeared at the end of the nineteenth century. L. Emmett Holt, MD (1855–1924), graduated from the College of Physicians and Surgeons in 1880. He decided to devote himself to pediatrics, which was not yet a…

  • Winnie Ille Pu and Dr. Alexander Lenard

    Avi Ohry Tel Aviv, Israel   Alexander Lenard. Photo via Wikimedia. Public domain. Sandor (Alexander) Lenard1 was born in Budapest, Hungary in 1910 and died in Dona Irma, Santa Catarina, Brazil in 1972. He was a Jewish poet, author, physician, painter, musician, translator, language teacher, philosopher, and polyglot. A short outline of Lenard’s life events…

  • On suffering and its depiction in William Carlos Williams’s “The Yellow Flower”

    Negin RezaeiTehran, Iran Eric Cassell observed that physical pain and suffering are two distinct experiences and that pain is only one of the infinite number of sources that may cause suffering in human beings. Doctors, he believes, need to understand this distinction if they are to establish an effective connection with their patients. Successfully treating…

  • Pediatrics and theatrics

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden 1. Initiation. I had had a busy night on call in the city’s largest women’s hospital. I was a second-year pediatric resident assigned to the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit. My pager went off while I was in the hospital cafeteria. I called the unit, and one of the fellows told me that…

  • A Martian treatment for dehydration

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden I was “rotating” through the pediatric service in an American general hospital. As a sixth-year student of a European medical school, I had been allowed to return home for my year of clinical duties before graduation. One day, during pediatric rounds, a resident presented an infant who had been admitted because of…

  • A walk on the pediatric floor

    Elie NajjarSt. Nottingham, United Kingdom I came to the pediatric floor to learn about medicine—the presentation, development, and resolution of diseases—but I found myself learning something that etched itself deeper into my soul. I learned about humanity and the great energy that even in the darkest of times still radiates from the faces of children.…

  • Young, pretty, and not quite right

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Unless we are in pediatrics, we start in clinical practice with our patients tending to be in the age range of our parents, or even older. Increasingly, as the grey in our temples is promoted to silver, their mean age gets closer to ours, and the percentage of younger patients keeps rising.…

  • Doubled edged shield

    Adil Menon Cleveland, Ohio, United States Working my way through a biography of pioneering vaccine developer Maurice Hilleman titled Vaccinated, I was struck by how often the researchers of his era, such as Jonas Salk, tested their vaccines both on their own children as well as on children with cognitive challenges. If indeed the latter were…

  • William Osler: Clinician and teacher with a pediatric interest

    Göran Wettrell Lund, Sweden   Figure 1. Sir William Osler in Oxford, photo presented by Lady Osler. Sir William Osler has been described as one of the greatest physicians of his time, especially known for his bedside medicine and teaching (Figure 1). He has also been characterized as “a pediatric-minded worker within the widespread wine-yard…

  • Learning about children

    Canon BrodarMiami, Florida, United States I began my first clinical rotation excited but fearful. Medical students are taught about pediatric pathology and developmental milestones, but nothing about working with children and their families. I had heard the constant refrain that “children are not just little adults” but as I started preparing for pediatrics, I had…