Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: The Doctor

  • Daumier’s doctors

    Howard FischerUppsala, Sweden “Comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable.”– Reinhold Niebuhr Honoré Daumier (1808–1879) was a “fundamentally discontented” French social critic, painter, sculptor, and printmaker. He produced over 100 sculptures, 500 paintings, 1000 drawings, 1000 engravings, and 4000 lithographs.1 Balzac said of his work, “There is something of Michelangelo in him.” Daumier hated anything…

  • A “most perfect interchange”

    Satyabha TripathiLucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India [Lydgate held] the conviction that the medical profession as it might be was the finest in the world; presenting the most perfect interchange between science and art; offering the most direct alliance between intellectual conquest and the social good […] he was an emotional creature, with a flesh-and-blood sense of…

  • Compassion

    Charles HalstedDavis, California, United States Formed and found in the human soul lies the wellspring of compassion.Seeing yourself in the other, the other in yourself is the essence of compassion. Selfless caring without condition for the unfortunate ones without voice,feeling the pain of another, accepting without judgment is compassion. Caring for someone in need or…

  • Radiology and visual arts interpretation

    Kristin KrumenackerHuntington, New York, United States Medical schools have increasingly included the humanities in their curricula, hoping to encourage empathy and compassion in their students. The effects of teaching the humanities is not limited to the student but can benefit the patient as well. In an era where more and more importance is placed on…

  • From enigma to Jeremy

    Ami Schattner Jerusalem, Israel One day each week I leave my hospital to serve as a consultant in ambulatory internal medicine. General practitioners from the area refer difficult patients to me, and thus my encounters vary from the very simple to the most challenging diagnostic riddles. Rachel belonged to the latter. This elderly lively lady…

  • Maintaining a moral compass in medicine

    Jeffrey LeePhiladelphia, Pennsylvania, United States It seemed like just another day during my third-year surgical rotation until I heard Mrs. W. cry. It was during daily rounds in the bustling ICU, and our team was squeezed around a single computer outside another patient’s room. I tried my best to pay attention to our discussion, but…

  • Art and Medicine

    JMS PearceEast Yorks, England Art has been said to deepen compassion for suffering.1 Paintings have been interpreted as “metaphors for human feelings . . . they are nonliteral symbols of the inner life.”2 Paintings trigger emotions and insights, “generating associations and tapping new, different, or deeper levels of meaning.”3 It is inherent in all the arts…