Tag: Summer 2016
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The imposters
Michelle PonderPhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States Freshly-coated med students across the world both revel and rot in the newfound responsibilities bestowed upon them. Suddenly, they become “the smart one” (especially if they are the first doctor in the family), worthy of giving sacred medical advice and being the first to know about Great Aunt Susan’s toe…
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A teacher remembered
Martin DukeMystic, Connecticut While a student in medical school during the early 1950s, I was assigned by chance to the medical service of Dr. Ludwig Eichna at New York City’s Bellevue Hospital (Figure 1). A professor of medicine and a respected cardiologist, clinical investigator, and medical educator, Dr. Eichna was serious, reserved, quiet in demeanor,…
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On Longcope Rounds
Kevin R. FontaineBirmingham, Alabama, United States Dr. Hunter Champion keys the code in and enters the Longcope Office holding two plastic bags and a cardboard box with Dunkin’ Donuts coffee. Senior resident Parker Ruhl, interns Ben McEnroy and Susan Quan, and third year medical student Justin Schaffe are tapping away at their keyboards as Champion…
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Medicine, a noble profession
Sir David ToddHong Kong, SAR, China Abstracted from the address to graduates of the Faculty of Medicine, University of Hong Kong, January 15, 2011. You have worked hard and are now duly rewarded; but this is just the beginning of your new life and that is perhaps why in North America graduation is known as…
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To Sir, with gratitude
Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece When I was twelve my late grandfather, seeing that I was disinclined to study English, made me an offer I could hardly ignore. “If you learn English,” he said, “then we shall go to America together,” knowing that this was a boyhood dream of mine. A few years later, at the age…
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First blood
John Graham-PoleAntigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada Hospital for Sick Children, Great Ormond Street, London, 1970: I’m astounded I’ve landed one of the coveted G.O.S. senior resident jobs. The academic nature of the place immediately daunts me. Everyone bows down to its status as the foremost pediatric research hospital in Europe, perhaps in the world, the faculty…
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Birth of Adonis
George DuneaChicago, IL In his version of an ancient Greek myth, Ovid tells what he calls the horrible story of Myrrha developing an incestuous passion for her father, the king of Cyprus. After becoming pregnant, she flees to escape punishment and appeals to the gods to take pity on her. She is transformed into a…
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Birth of Mary
George DuneaChicago, IL The story of the birth of the Virgin comes not from the Scriptures but from the apocryphal Gospel of James, probably written about AD 145. It tells that Anna and Joachim were infertile but prayed for a child and were promised that such a child would advance God’s plan of salvation of…
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Birth of Bacchus
George DuneaChicago, IL Bacchus (Dionysus), god of wine, fertility, and ritual or religious ecstasies, was born under trying circumstances. His mother, Semele, already with child from Jupiter, was induced by a jealous Juno to insist he visit her as a god, not disguised as a mortal. When Jupiter appeared to her the way he really…