Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Skin Graft

  • Burn

    Arthur WilliamsCincinnati, Ohio, United States Adapted from a chapter of the novel Krooked Ketamine (self-published, 2024) by Arthur Williams. As a surgeon, I have performed a fair amount of skin grafts over the years. To need a skin graft, a person has to have sustained a serious injury, usually a terribly painful burn or an…

  • About face: From revulsion to compassion

    Sylvia R. KarasuNew York City, New York, United States “I was too ugly to go to school,” writes Lucy Grealy in her painful memoir Autobiography of a Face.1 At the age of nine, Grealy was diagnosed with a rare Ewing’s sarcoma of her jaw that necessitated disfiguring surgery, radiation, and chemotherapy. “I was my face,”…