Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_suicide_crisis_lines

  • Mental health issues in medical students: The prejudice and the injury

    Amairani Gómez RodríguezPuebla, Mexico I had my first panic attack at seventeen. Biochemistry was a total headache; no matter how hard I studied, it was never enough to pass. As a school overachiever, I had never experienced failure. I felt an existential pressure. My supportive family never demanded high marks or my being the top…

  • Suicide: always a tragedy?

    JMS PearceHull, England The tragedy of suicide is well expressed in “The romantic suicide: Karoline von Günderrode” by Nicolás Roberto Robles.1 We all try hard to understand this act. Self-destructive urges are an ubiquitous but often ignored or suppressed aspect of all human life. But what makes a person take their own life is often…

  • “…One must imagine Sisyphus happy”

    Katerina DimaPreveza, Greece Ancient Greek mythology teems with stories of morality, despair, and the philosophy of the absurd. No story, however, had a greater impact on this young, impressionable medical student than the story of Sisyphus. Sisyphus was a popular and prominent figure of Ancient Greece, the successful king of the city of Corinth. As…

  • Suffocating in the bell jar: The euthanasia request by the unbearably suffering, depressed patient

    Barend FlorijnAd KapteinThe Netherlands Introduction The Dutch Euthanasia Act took effect in the Netherlands in 2002. Since then the official euthanasia number of patients with a mental disorder has risen from 13 in 2011 to 42 patients in 2013.1 This Act regulates the ending of one’s life by a physician at the request of an unbearably…