Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Red Cross

  • Red Cross targets emotional impact of climate change

    Sharon CohenNewtown, Connecticut, United States Natural disasters are growing in frequency and intensity worldwide. Mother Nature demonstrated her devastating fury in over 300 global events of intense wind, rain, floods, and fire in 2019, and the 2020s should see more of the same. Other issues, such as excessive heat and drought, are causing diminished availability…

  • The Red Cross and hematology pioneers

    Barnabas PastoryDar es Salaam, Tanzania Providing medical care to suffering humankind constitutes an important part of the Red Cross’ service scope. History records an important connection between the Red Cross and pioneers in the subject matter of blood. The humanitarian service of the Red Cross began between 1859 and 1863 with the advocacy efforts of…

  • The International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent

    Mawuli Tettey Ghana   The Red Cross Society is a worldwide humanitarian and volunteer-based organization that protects human life and health by rendering assistance to anyone who may need it. In 1862, a Swiss man named Jean-Henri Dunant published a book titled A Memory of Solferino in which he called for the creation of national…

  • A real world of not-so-real blood

    Kelsey RuudSpokane, Washington, United States Sarah Smith* thought today would be like any other day. She would take her kids to school, then go to her job as an office secretary. But Sarah never made it. Passing through an intersection, Sarah’s car was hit when another driver ran a red light. Paramedics arrived at the…

  • Blood mnemonics

    Chris ArthurSt. Andrews, Scotland Two photographs in Dunant’s Dream, Caroline Moorehead’s meticulous and moving history of the Red Cross, can be juxtaposed to illustrate a key aspect of this organization’s work. The first shows Henri Dunant, now regarded as “the father of the Red Cross.”1 In June 1859, this thirty-one-year-old businessman was traveling in Italy…

  • Where the unusual was usual: The Cook County Hospital blood bank

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States There are those who claim that the first blood collection and transfusion services were started by Percy Oliver of the Camberwell Division of the British Red Cross in 19211 and not by Dr. Bernard Fantus at the Cook County Hospital, Chicago in 1937. However, everyone agrees that the term “Blood…

  • Whose blood is it anyway?

    Felicity SelfPacific North West I am ashamed. I am ashamed because I have only given blood once in my entire adult life. I am forty-eight years old and eligible to donate blood since I was seventeen, which means I have had thirty-one years in which I could have given blood. And I know the importance:…