Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Winter 2016

  • The influence of the internet on medical student learning: A personal perspective

    P. Ravi ShankarOranjestad, Aruba The Medical College sprawls across a rocky hillside at Mulangunnathukavu (a real mouthful of a name) in a village some twelve kilometers from the town of Thrissur in central Kerala. It is a converted tuberculosis sanatorium, its various departments and administrative buildings housed in modified buildings. The kingdom of Cochin in…

  • Wilson’s disease on television

    Michelle MuscatMsida, Malta The television series Scrubs, created by Bill Lawrence, is a popular medical comedy that follows the hospital adventures of the main protagonist Dr. John “J.D.” Dorian (Zach Braff) as well as other hospital staff employed at Sacred Heart. The TV series spans numerous seasons and hence features several episodes introducing medical conditions.…

  • The middle finger: identity crisis in the emergency room

    Lara BazelonSan Francisco, California, United States I am a lawyer who writes. I write about the criminal justice system, single parenting, divorce, and I am also an aspiring novelist. I had always written, scribbling in diaries as a little kid, writing early in the morning before I went to work or on the weekends, eking…

  • Maude Abbott and the early rise of pediatric cardiology

    Göran WettrellLund University, Sweden In December 1898 Dr. Maude Elizabeth Abbott, assistant curator at the medical museum of McGill University in Canada, was sent to study museums and other institutions in Washington, D.C. In Baltimore she met Dr. William Osler, professor of medicine and one of the founders of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. During…

  • Edgar Allan Poe—A tormented literary genius

    Donna OlsonWhitelaw, Alberta A man attempts to hide from his sins and ultimately from himself. A murderer takes an old man’s life and hides the body under the floorboards. But he cannot silence his guilt, so he keeps on hearing the dead man’s heart in his room. This story is “The Tell-Tale Heart,” written by…

  • The lady writer and the Valkyrie: Magda Szabo’s novel The Door

    Carol LevineNew York, New York, United States An old woman desperately needs medical attention. Yet she fiercely refuses every offer of help from friends, neighbors, and the local doctor. No one will get past her door, she vows. Respecting her autonomy means leaving her alone, possibly to die. Intervening to save her means risking her…

  • Shepherd with a goiter

    Sally MetzlerChicago, Illinois, United States This beautiful scene of the Nativity by Moretto da Brescia (c. 1498-1554) in the Santa Giulia Museum of his native town is painted in muted autumnal colors of gold, browns, and greens. On the right the ox and the ass peer out from the stable. A flock of sheep grazing…

  • Fear

    Dalis Seungeun KimUSF Morsani College of Medicine, USA Artist statement This painting depicts fear and the interplay of different regions of the brain (i.e. hippocampus, prefrontal cortex, and amygdala). The serpent’s tongue is reaching toward the individual in white—haunting memory inducing fear in the hippocampus (brain area essential in memory). Meanwhile, the face on the…

  • A painful but tender embrace: Robert Pope’s Aesculapius

    Caroline WellberyWashington, DC, United States Robert Pope, early in childhood a student gifted in science, chose art as his career, and no one better melds the observing eye with the understanding heart. The shadow of cancer hung over him during the most productive years of his life: he died of Hodgkin’s lymphoma at the age…

  • Obesity and art

    Bojana CokićZajecar, Serbia Obesity is the oldest and most common metabolic disorder of humans, as shown even by the sculptures of ancient civilizations, the Greek caryatids, and Egyptian sphinxes and mummies. Many artists have painted it on their canvases as seen through the prism of their artistic eye and in accordance with the prevalent conceptions…