Tag: Tracheotomy
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Dr. Mikhail Bulgakov and morphine
Howard Fischer Uppsala, Sweden Centers for Disease Control Public Health Image Library. Public domain. “During the years of war and revolution it was hard to find a hospital without morphine-addicted patients.”1 – Vladimir Gorovoy-Shaltan, physician specialist in addiction medicine Mikhail Afanasyevich Bulgakov (1891–1940) was a Russian physician, novelist, and playwright. He earned his…
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Grumpy doctors and the short story
Tony Miksanek Southern Illinois, United States This essay is based on a presentation made at the University of Iowa College of Medicine for the conference “The Examined Life: Writing and the Art of Medicine” on April 24, 2008. It isn’t always necessary to take the temperature of fictional physicians to know that they are…
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High drama in the scullery
George Dunea This dramatic incident must have taken place around 1930, at a time when great controversy raged about the level at which a life-saving tracheotomy should be done. It is an extract from “High Tracheotomy Low Tracheostomy,” a lecture as given by Sir Clive Fitts at the Royal College of Physicians of London in…
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The tracheotomy
Michelle Paff Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States The tracheotomy Michelle Paff Oil on canvas 20” x 15” The transformation of a medical student into a physician is depicted in the short story, The Steel Windpipe (1925), by the Russian physician and author, Mikhail Bulgakov. A young practitioner is stationed alone at a rural hospital, and…