Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Soldiers

  • Battle of six feet

    Mark MosleyWichita, Kansas, United States They die alone now;jet pilots soaring solo upwardmuffled voices sucked into machinesspeaking a language we recognizebut too distant to quite understanduntil their plastic faces hardenand eyes glaze over like cloudsbreathing in rhythm into the beyond. We watch them curiously like fishin an aquarium fluorescent behind glass;heads inside our own bubbles,yellow…

  • They don’t teach us that

    Evelyn PotochnyHershey, Pennsylvania, United States You called in your own medevac. You’d even tourniqueted both legs, or what was left of them. And when the Chinook kicked up all that dust and finally landed, you looked so—calm. Someone read each name and the litany of injuries while we watched each stretcher pass by, yours included—a…

  • Pieter Bruegel and The Parable of the Blind

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Let them alone. They are blind leaders of the blind. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into the ditch.”—Matthew 15:14, King James Version 21st Century The Netherlandish painter Pieter Bruegel the Elder (b.ca.1525-d.1569), who lived and worked in Brussels, was considered “the most perfect painter of his century.”1…

  • The sanctity of blood: Jehovah’s Witnesses and bloodless medicine

    Margo PeytonBaltimore, Maryland, United States Tammy said that her throat looked like that of a bullfrog croaking on an August night. At her local emergency room, her blood pressure was 240/40 mmHg due to profound aortic valve insufficiency complicated by an aortic aneurysm. Her condition necessitated high-risk cardiac surgery, a procedure that carries the potential…

  • Medical doctors in the army of India

    Dhastagir SheriffChennai, Tamil Nadu, India “The patriot’s blood is the seed of Freedom’s tree.”– Thomas Campbell India, like many other countries, has doctors serving in the army as well as tertiary care hospitals that provide medical services to the armed forces personnel. It also trains students to become physicians and surgeons to serve as commissioned…