Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Psychiatrists

  • Drapetomania: A “disease” that never was

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Slavery is next to hell.” – Harriet Tubman “And before I’d be a slave,I’ll be buried in my grave…”– Oh, Freedom, African-American spiritual Slavery arrived in what later became the United States in 1619. Slaves were used mainly as agricultural laborers. In the US South, that meant working with tobacco and cotton…

  • Mental hospital memories of another era

    Robert Craig Brisbane, Queensland, Australia   The former St. Audry’s Hospital. Photo by Adrian S Pye. CC BY-SA 2.0. In 1964, having obtained a place to study medicine at Cambridge University, I was given the opportunity as a medical student to work as an assistant nurse for three months in a large residential mental hospital…

  • Counseling

    Migel Jayasinghe  England, UK This article was previously published by the author between the years of 2006 and 2018. The original publisher has since been lost and the article edited and republished by Hektoen International staff. Other appearances of this text elsewhere on the internet may be unauthorized.   Hampstead Heath, 1970 by Jo Brocklehurst. The British…

  • The bedside manners of Ingmar Bergman’s celluloid physicians

    Eelco WijdicksRochester, Minnesota, United States The great humanitarian filmmaker and auteur Ingmar Bergman used physicians in his films much more frequently than his peers. Bergman’s full filmography, including two films (Thirst and Brink of Life) directed by but not written by Bergman, features sixteen physicians in thirteen films. Excluding the family doctor in Fanny and…

  • Anosognosia

    Michael Ellman  Chicago, IL, United States   South Pacific, 1950. Joseph Cable (William Tabbert) watches as Bloody Mary (Juanita Hall, top) and Liat (Betta St. John) perform the song “Happy Talk” “Joseph Cable, at your service! U.S. Marines, World War Two, retired—at ease, Doctor. Let’s be casual, shall we?” My patient is tall and ramrod…