Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Tracheostomy

  • Sacrifice

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   Ruins of the basilica of St. Achillios, Lake Prespa, Greece. Photo by the author. The supine and inert feminine form has been reduced to a few square centimeters of uncovered skin between the jaw and the sternum. Strategically placed green surgical drapes shroud the rest of the body. A series…

  • Young, pretty, and not quite right

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   Photo by Anthony Papagiannis. Unless we are in pediatrics, we start in clinical practice with our patients tending to be in the age range of our parents, or even older. Increasingly, as the grey in our temples is promoted to silver, their mean age gets closer to ours, and the…

  • Too many doctors: The death of Friedrich III

    Nicolas Roberto Robles  Badajoz, Spain Figure 1. Kaiser Friedrich Museum (currently Bode Museum) on the Monbijou Bridge in Berlin, 1905. Public domain. Via Wikimedia Un médico cura; dos, dudan; tres, muerte segura. One doctor, health; two, doubt; three, certain death. -Spanish saying. Friedrich III of Hohenzollern was the second Kaiser of Germany and eighth King…

  • Intubation for diphtheria

    In 1904 diphtheria was a dangerous killer that suffocated its victims by obstructing the respiratory passages and sometimes required an emergency but dangerous surgical tracheostomy. In this painting a specialist in infectious diseases is avoiding tracheostomy by inserting a tube to bypass the obstruction. He is observed intently by interested physicians, all watching this new…

  • In translation

    Michelle Ponder Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States   Approaching the patient: the rescuer comes in front of the patient, introduces herself, and asks the patient to squeeze her hand, in case she would be too weak to speak. Rama, December 2004. In my first year of clinical rotation in medical school there was no service as…