Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Robert H. Pietrzak

  • Kumbhakarna, a sleeping giant: A medico-mythological exploration

    B. Sadananda NaikMoodabidri, India Kumbhakarna, a gigantic brother of the legendary demon king Ravana, is depicted as one of the most powerful warriors in the Indian epic the Ramayana.1 Kumbhakarna became famous for his extraordinary sleep and enormous appetite. According to Hindu mythology, due to… Read more

  • Hiroshima: Are its lessons fading?

    Barry PerlmanNew York, New York, United States For much of my eighty-one years, the threat of nuclear war remained a subliminal fear. Recently, its possibility has roared back into my consciousness. The commemoration of the eightieth anniversary of the first, and we pray last, uses… Read more

  • Beyond the fingerstick

    Allison WangCalifornia, United States I was working the afternoon shift when, after three hours of walking under the sun, I was finally assigned to the blood sugar testing station. The days were long—eight-hour shifts that began at five in the morning as we drove into… Read more

  • The death of Emperor Caesar Augustus

    Augustus’s death in CE 14 ended one of the most remarkable lives in Roman history. Born Gaius Octavius in 63 BCE, he was adopted posthumously by Julius Caesar as his son and chief heir. After Julius Caesar’s assassination in 44 BCE, he formed an alliance… Read more

  • Max Thorek: An ignored surgical superstar

    Jayant RadhakrishnanChicago, Illinois, United States Much of what we know about Dr. Max Thorek is from his informative and eminently readable autobiography A Surgeon’s World, which is sprinkled with entertaining and enlightening vignettes.1 Max Thorek (1880–1960) was born in a town in the Tátra mountains… Read more

  • Proust’s medical madeleine: Medicine and the making of À la recherche du temps perdu

    Vivian McAlisterLondon, Ontario, Canada Marcel Proust was expected to waste his life. To acquaintances of the Proust family, he appeared charming, delicate, over-refined, and incapacitated by an illness that seemed to excuse him from the ordinary obligations of career and usefulness. Valentine Thomson, remembering the… Read more

  • The death of Joseph Stalin

    On March 1, 1953, the most feared man in the world lay on the floor dying in the Kuntsevo Dacha, outside Moscow, in a pool of his own urine. He had been there for hours. Guards had discovered him sometime after midnight—crumpled beside his bed,… Read more

  • A collective narrative of Black women physicians in the United States

    Kathryne DycusUnited States In Twice As Hard: The Stories of Black Women Who Fought to Become Physicians, From the Civil War to the 21st Century, Jasmine Brown hands us a collection of Black women physicians’ narratives and inserts her own into the mix. “Initially, I… Read more

  • A doctor does not know how to change a tire!

    Omer AltamimiJeddah, Saudi Arabia A doctor spends years learning how to recognize sepsis, read a scan, close a wound, and speak to a frightened patient. Then one day, he may stand beside a flat tire and realize he does not even know where to place… Read more

  • The death of Cicero

    The death of Marcus Tullius Cicero marked the end of one of the most brilliant careers in the history of the Roman Republic. Cicero was not only a statesman and lawyer but also a philosopher, writer, and defender of republican government. His assassination in 43… Read more

  • Sahara, the desert that once was green 

    The Sahara is the largest desert in the world, stretching across North Africa and covering nine million square kilometers from the Atlantic to the Red Sea.  It has a population of some 2.5 million people, many of whom are nomadic. Although the term “Sahara” conveys… Read more

  • Damascus, the oldest capital city in the world

    Damascus, capital of Syria, was settled as early as 9000 BCE. It stands on the eastern slopes of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, nourished by the Barada River. The city was never abandoned or swallowed by desert sands; it always served as a center for trade, culture,… Read more