Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: W. Roy Smythe

  • The peach tree

    Roy SmytheTemple, Texas, United States In the hot Texas summer of my 77th year, my skin turned a little yella’, and I lost some weight. Doc Butler, who I’d been seein’ for ‘bout 30 years now, told me to go to the “cancer center” in the city. I didn’t want to go, but hell, he…

  • What about the blood?

    W. Roy SmytheTemple, Texas, United States My beeper went off again. I got up out of my seat in the empty hospital cafeteria, walked over to the wall phone and dialed zero. Zero is exactly how much energy I have for anything right now, I thought. As a senior cardiothoracic surgery resident in my ninth…