Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Ukraine

  • Crimea: Past and present

    Crimea, on the Black Sea, has been successively inhabited by Cimmerians, Scythians, and Greeks. Around the sixth century BCE, colonists from Greece established important settlements in Crimea, such as Chersonesus (near modern Sevastopol) and Pantikapaion (modern Kerch). The Greek influence during the classical period is reflected in plays such as Euripides’ Iphigenia at Tauris, the…

  • Yurii Voronoy, Ukrainian kidney transplant pioneer

    Yurii Yurijevich Voronoy was born in 1896 in a village in the region of Poltava in Ukraine, where his father was a professor of mathematics. In World War I Voronoy was a volunteer corpsman in the Ukrainian contingent, and after the war he studied medicine in Kyiv. He then joined the department of surgery in…

  • Psychopathological aspects of the war in Ukraine

    Sergei JarginMoscow, Russia Paranoid leaders can remain in positions of great power in nations that lack appropriate checks and balances.1 This is particularly likely in one-party states where mass intimidation and imposed homogeneity of thinking prevail and where everyone conforms with the ruling party. Grave consequences can occur when paranoid and delusional ideas coexist in…

  • To my colleagues in Ukraine whom I saw on TV

    Barry MeisenbergBaltimore, Maryland, United States Limestone fragments of the “Vulture Stele” now in the Louvre Museum, Paris, France. A stele is a stone pillar erected as a monument to some great event. This stele was created circa 2500 BC to celebrate the victory of King Eannatum of Lagash over Ush, king of Umma. In the…

  • Medical tourism

    Kozlova LiudmylaMykolaiv, Ukraine Medical tourism is a highly profitable industry that offers a range of medical procedures, highly specialized medical services, and tourism opportunities. It combines travel for health and medical services with recreational tourism. While on the one hand, medical tourism may reduce the current and future health capital of a country through its…

  • How black turned white

    Kateryna TsoiKharkiv, Ukraine In 1876, the World’s Fair was held outside Europe for the first time, taking place in Philadelphia and coinciding with the centenary of the US Declaration of Independence. Thomas Eakins, not yet a well-known artist, decided to present a large-scale canvas at the exhibition of a subject he knew well. An ardent…

  • Maxwell Finland: expert in infectious diseases

    Martin DukeMystic, Connecticut, United States Maxwell Finland (1902-1987) was a remarkable physician, teacher, and researcher in infectious diseases. His life began during the turmoil of the pogroms in Tsarist Russia and ended in the heady academic and medical surroundings of Boston, Massachusetts. It was a life well spent. Whatever else may have prompted Frank and…

  • Rilke: A poet’s death

    Nicolas Roberto RoblesBadajoz, Spain Rose, oh reiner widerspruch, lust,Niemandes schlaf zu sein under soviel lidern Rose, o pure contradiction, desire,to be no one’s sleep beneath so many lids. – Rainer Maria Rilke, epitaph On December 4, 1875, René Karl Wilhelm Johann Josef Maria Rilke (later changed to Rainer Maria Rilke) was born in Prague, the…

  • Blood at Maidan—Kyiv, Ukraine 2014

    Olena KaguiRhode Island, United States There was no physical blood present when I stepped onto Maidan Square in Kyiv, Ukraine. Yet signs of it were everywhere. Bullet holes pierced the shields and helmets that memorialized the fallen. Flowers, the color of blood, sat inside the cavern of the helmet. The space, once occupied by a…

  • Ivan

    Christopher H. CameronKelso, United Kingdom It was a time in general practice when doctors still visited patients for other than purely medical reasons. Back then, it was easy to forget why or when a particular visit had started or how it had mysteriously evolved into a regular one. “Chronic” was the often vaguely demeaning term…