Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: St. Thomas

  • Samuel Solly—distinguished surgeon and educator

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK Samuel Solly was born in St. Mary Axe, London, on May 13, 1805. He attended school in Walthamstow, East London, where his contemporaries included the future British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.1 In May 1822 he became an apprentice to Benjamin Travers, a surgeon at St. Thomas’s Hospital.2 For this privilege he…

  • Dame Cicely Saunders and the foundation of the hospice movement

    Julie SilvermanSeattle, Washington, United States “Many doctors nowadays, when the death of their patients becomes imminent, seem to believe that it is quite proper to leave the dying in the care of the nurses and the sorrowing relatives,” lamented Dr. Alfred Worcester in 1935, “This shifting of responsibility is un-pardonable.”1 Then as now, abandoning patients…