Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Suicide in medical school

  • The neuroscientific legacy of the Vogt family

    Grace O’ConnorRichard BrownHalifax, Nova Scotia, Canada Introduction Oskar and Cécile Vogt were pioneering neuroscientists who established a brain research center in Berlin, Germany, in the early twentieth century. Their work advanced the field of neuroscience through studies on brain architecture and function, including the mapping… Read more

  • Worth the wait

    Jennifer WalkerCarbondale, Illinois, United States Being a mom was something I knew I wanted from an early age, but no one thinks when you decide to start a family, that it might take years to happen. My husband and I have been together since high… Read more

  • Louis Leakey: Pioneering the study of human evolution in Africa

    Zachary SorensenChicago, Illinois, United States Louis Seymour Bazet Leakey was a paleoanthropologist and archaeologist renowned for his fieldwork in East Africa. His career spanned several decades, and he made important contributions to our understanding of human origins. His research dramatically shaped the way the world… Read more

  • Ancient medicine on the Nile

    Egyptian medicine was already highly advanced by 5000 BCE, and its physicians were highly esteemed. During the Neolithic or last phase of the Stone Age, a flourishing civilization had developed on the fertile banks of the Nile, and around 3100 BCE, King Narmer (or Menes)… Read more

  • The memoirs of Catherine the Great: Forecasting death

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States Courageous and voracious in her quest for power, Empress Catherine the Great (1729–1796) dominated the world stage of politics in the second half of the eighteenth century. The daughter of a Lutheran German prince, she traded her homeland, changed her… Read more

  • Meshamorphosis

    Leo GordonLos Angeles, California, United States As Dr. Sylvia Samsa, Chief of Surgery at the Metropolitan Medical Center, awoke one morning from uneasy dreams, she found herself transformed in her bed into a piece of synthetic mesh. Dr. Sylvia Samsa, Chief of Surgery at the… Read more

  • Olives now and then

    Olives in their natural state are exceedingly bitter. I made that discovery by the roadside between Granada and Madrid when I reached up and plucked an olive from a tree. I later learned that olives are made edible by leaching out a bitter phenolic compound… Read more

  • Dominique-Vivant Denon, first director of the Louvre

    Dominique-Vivant Denon (1747–1825) was a polymath whose career spanned art, archaeology, diplomacy, and museum curation. Born into minor nobility on January 4, 1747, in Givry, Burgundy, he became one of the most influential cultural figures of his time. After studying law in Paris, Denon switched… Read more

  • Tinkering towards technology: Examples from the evolution of renal medicine in the UK

    Eric WillNicholas MarksUnited Kingdom “Tinkering” is a mindset that responds to calls for improvement or repair through piecemeal modification. It may involve novelty or rediscovery, and ranges from mechanics to imaging, the concrete to the abstract. A writer tinkers with a text, the artist with… Read more

  • Death playing a fiddle

    Rosemaria RoyDublin, Ireland Doctors stand at the crossroads as both healers and witnesses in the dance between life and death, easing suffering while still holding space for the inevitable. As frequent as one may face it, the concept of death is still not yet fully… Read more

  • Faustina Maratti’s poem and altarpiece on losing her infant son

    Stephen MartinThailand A most unusual altarpiece panel of the Virgin with the infants Christ and John the Baptist came to light recently. (Fig 1) The heavily-sawn pitch pine had an inscription on the back which was difficult to read. Studying the ink writing under violet… Read more

  • Recognizing nonverbal communication through art

    Florence GeloPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States On a recent excursion to the Philadelphia Museum of Art for a themed tour, medical students gathered to look at paintings of suffering and healing. For this medical humanities elective, led by faculty members, each small group viewed these images,… Read more