Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Personal Narratives

  • The bulletproof doctor

    Ammar SaadOttawa, Ontario, Canada I had been admitted to the Damascus University General Hospital a few months earlier, but ever since the war had started, doctors rarely visited my ward. Mirriam, a young resident doctor, was the exception. She came often to my room and made me feel as though I was her favorite patient.…

  • Rethinking the impulse to empathize: a sister’s perspective on sympathy and stigma

    Jeanne FarnanPennsylvania, United States “I am so sorry.” My youngest sister, Annie, was born during the spring semester of my first year of high school. These four words are etched into my memory, integrally intertwined with the events of that spring. “I am so sorry.” I remember these words so clearly because they clashed dramatically…

  • Avulsions

    Torree McGowanCulver, Oregon, United States There are moments in life that serve as a dividing line. These instants sharply incise our worlds into before and after, the then and the now. Moments shimmer like a crystalline barrier, allowing you to see so clearly through to what was, but that past is just out of reach.…

  • Living with incidental cyberchondria

    Theresa DannaBurbank, California, United States Before the Internet, if I had a pain in my chest, I would assume it was gas and then burp and move on with my day. After the Internet, if I have a pain in my chest, I panic and think, “That’s one of the five warning signs of a…

  • Self-esteem and skin diseases

    Bebeyi AbiodunNigeria When I was a little girl, I looked for angular objects to help me scratch my legs. The itch and disgust encroached on my everyday life. I always wore my socks pulled up even though it meant I did not look like the cool kids at school. In time, I started wearing long…

  • When there’s no plug to pull

    Darcy SternbergNew York, New York, United States At night I lie awake on the living room sofa staring at the moon, envying its constancy. Change had eaten up our lives. My husband, Marty, and I met in 1986 when he was forty-nine and I was thirty-five. Should I have been concerned by a shaky left…

  • Lost in translation

    Jonathan XianHouston, Texas, United States At the start of residency, you should make a list of five things you value most and think carefully about which ones you can live without. Cross them off one by one until only one is left, and that one is what you get to keep. My one thing was…

  • Gingerbread

    Olga DiganchinaAstana, Kazakhstan The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.-Mark Twain Patients had mostly become faceless for me. I had treated and discharged so many of them as a resident that I seemed to have a job on an assembly line.…

  • Appendicitis: a teenager’s insight

    Berklee CohenClarksville, Maryland, United States If we have enjoyed good health for most of our lives, we often take that health and happiness for granted. An event occurred during summer break that enabled me to truly appreciate my own good health and made me more aware of the challenges for people facing serious illness. One…

  • Learning anatomy in medical school

    Peter H. BerczellerDordogne, France An excerpt from Dr. Peter Berczeller’s memoir, The Little White Coat. On the second day of medical school, we were invited to meet the cadaver we would be working on for the next six months. I trooped up with the rest of the class into a large unheated space on the…