Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Review of Health Humanities in Postgraduate Medical Education: A Handbook to the Heart of Medicine

  • An emergency nurse in the time of Covid

    Kimberly TranchitaChicago, Illinois, United States April 2020 I hug my family and leave for work in the ED. No cars on the road. I stop at McDonald’s to get my free “frontline worker” cup of coffee. I no longer bring my own coffee or anything… Read more

  • Waiting

    Sandra GaynorChicago, Illinois, United States What is waiting? As a child, waiting was, for me, a time to be angry with my father. He found it impossible to be on time for any event. When the rest of the family was dressed and sitting with… Read more

  • Samuel Vaisrub: An unforgettable editor

    Alan BlumTuscaloosa, Alabama, United StatesGeorge DuneaChicago, Illinois, United States In this brief editorial we have collaborated to pay homage to a distinguished man of the last century whom we have both known personally. Samuel Vaisrub, MD, was a prolific editorial writer and the author of… Read more

  • A midnight call

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece We are halfway through Advent and looking forward to Christmas. As I am finishing some late-night computer work and seriously thinking about sleep, the cell phone goes off. I recognize the voice of a man I saw recently. His problem is trouble… Read more

  • Paolo Sarpi: Venetian hero, Roman heretic

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Though an obscure figure today, for many years Fra Paolo Sarpi (1552–1623) loomed large in the ecclesiastical, scientific, and political arenas of Europe. Macaulay praised him as his “favorite modern historian,”1 Boswell called him a genius, and Samuel Johnson considered… Read more

  • In memoriam: James Parkinson

    JMS PearceHull, England The 21st of December 2024 marks the 200th anniversary of the death of Dr James Parkinson (1755–1824), author of An Essay on the Shaking Palsy. He was buried in St. Leonard’s church where a marble plaque elegantly summarising his life and work… Read more

  • Book review: X-ray

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, England X-ray by Nicole Lobdell is the latest in the Bloomsbury Collection series “Object Lessons,” which examines the hidden and unexplored aspects of ordinary things that have become a part of modern life. X-rays have long been a source of fascination, not… Read more

  • Aequanimitas

    JMS PearceHull, England Amongst many books and essays devoted to the ideology and practice of medicine in its widest sense, William Osler’s Aequanimitas1 stands out as a classic. Influenced by Sir Thomas Browne’s Religio Medici, published in 1686, Osler’s Aequanimitas with Other Addresses to Medical… Read more

  • Pietro Grimani: Venetian Doge and Fellow of the Royal Society (1667–1752)

    Pietro Grimani was one the most cultured of the 120 Doges who served as chief magistrates and leaders of the city and republic of Venice for more than one thousand years. Born into an ancient aristocratic family that had held essential positions in Venetian society,… Read more

  • Reminiscences of a medical student in Australia

    Some years ago a tourist shown the shopping Galleria in Milan asked the guide why the ceiling paintings illustrating the world’s continents did not include Australia. The guide explained that Australia had yet to be invented. She was clearly misinformed in that the British had… Read more

  • Whose name is writ in water: Life, serendipity, and fibrodysplasia ossificans progressiva

    Carol Zapata-WhelanFresno, California, United States “… I guess [the grass] is the handkerchief of the Lord,A scented gift and remembrancer designedly dropt,Bearing the owner’s name someway in the corners, that we may see and remark, and say Whose?”—Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass I sank down… Read more

  • The Turk’s Head Literary Club

    Elizabeth SteinhartJMS PearceHull, England We share a fascination for the varied activities, relics, and quirky names of eighteenth- and nineteenth-centuries’ gentlemen’s clubs and societies. One of us (ES) recently found the blue plaque of the Turk’s Head Literary Club above a Chinese supermarket in London’s… Read more