Tag: Winter 2014
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A writer and a doctor: What a physician’s account of Auschwitz can teach us about the ethics of story-telling in medicine
Christine HennebergSan Francisco, California, United States In writing this work I am not aiming for any literary success. When I lived through these horrors, which were beyond all imagining, I was not a writer but a doctor. Today, in telling about them, I write not as a reporter but as a doctor.1 The opening “declaration”…
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Surgeon and ambassador of the humanities: Homage à Grace and Philip Sandblom
Frank Wollheim I realized early on in medical school that I had no talent to become a surgeon. Yet I remember the professor of surgery in Lund, Philip Sandblom (1903-2001), as one of my most significant teachers and introducers to the humanities. The seventh term of our curriculum was entirely devoted to a clerkship in…
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As I lay dead
James NieCalifornia, United States Death came out of the blue. I spent my last night with a glass of Jameson, grading biology tests and half watching a Matlock Marathon with my wife. We were happy: our daughter was pursuing a law career, our mortgage was paid off, and we had reached a level of comfort…
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Andreas Vesalius’ audience speaks out
Angela BelliQueens, New York, United States Andreas Vesalius’ The Fabric of the Human Body marks not only a milestone in medical history but, by virtue of its extraordinary illustrations, offers ample evidence of medicine and art complementing each other. The frontispiece of the work, depicting an audience witnessing a dissection performed by Vesalius, portrays a…