Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Winter 2018

  • The education of Doctor Chekhov

    Jack Coulehan Stony Brook, New York, USA   Chekov as a medical student October 1883. A fifth-year medical student at Moscow State University agonizes over his upcoming exam. “Woe is me!” he writes to his older brother, “I am forced to learn almost everything from the beginning… cadavers to be worked on, clinical studies, making…

  • An emperor unclothed: the virtuous Osler

    Patrick Fiddes Paul A. Komesaroff Melbourne, Australia   William Osler at Oxford. Apart from Hippocrates himself, William Osler was among the most praised physicians of all time. Like his Greek forerunner, Osler amassed a huge following of loyal supporters, for whom he could evidently do no wrong. One went so far as to suggest that…

  • In Consultation: Rachmaninoff, his physician, and the genesis of a masterpiece

    Vincent de Luise New Haven, Connecticut, United States   “You need color to make music come alive. Without color, music is dead.” — Sergei Rachmaninoff Sergei Rachmaninoff (1873-1943) There are piano concertos and then there are Piano Concertos. While favorites include the Tchaikovsky First, Mozart’s Twenty-first, the Beethoven Fifth (“Emperor”), and the first concertos of Brahms…

  • Song as a unit for physical activity: A-minor Proposal

    Cillin CondonDublin, Ireland “Let us go singing as far as we go: the road will be less tedious.”— Virgil Physical inactivity is recognized as a significant risk factor for diseases such as stroke, diabetes, and cancer.1 Recommendations for adults include 150 minutes or more of moderate to vigorous physical activity per week, or at least 75…

  • Evidence versus practice: the story of surgery in breast cancer

    Robert Biggar Bethesda, Maryland, United States Imhotep: physician, architect and adviser to Pharaoh Djoser, 26th Century BCE   “As to diseases, make a habit of two things — to help, or at least, to do no harm.” ― Hippocrates (circa 400 BCE)   As a scientist, I see breast cancer as a biological process that starts…

  • Medical deafness or the madness of war: Goya’s motivation for creating the Black Paintings

    Sarah BahrIndianapolis, Indiana, United States The Spanish painter Francisco Goya darkened the plaster walls of his rural Madrid farmhouse with leering witches, a gaggle of grimacing hags, and a man with bulging eyes devouring a human form. The latter painting, posthumously titled Saturn Devouring His Children, features a Titan plunging a bloody child whole into…

  • Medicine as we know it

    Ifediba Nzube Port Harcourt, Rivers State, Nigeria    Living Afloat by DoDD Brown, 2014. Port Harcourt, Nigeria In the last episode of one season of Grey’s Anatomy, a cyberterrorist hacks into the network of Grey Sloan Memorial Hospital and shuts down their cardiac monitors, CT scanners, elevators, and electronic medical records. The hacker demands 5000…

  • Imagine

    Daniel Becker  Charlottesville, Virginia, United States   Author and his doctor bag, en route to a home visit Up in the intensive care unit an elderly man with a subdural hematoma is dying. His wife has been at his side all night. They are from out of town and were on vacation when he slipped…

  • A mother’s voice

    Kelsey HartDenver, Colorado, United States I sit in the blue plastic recliner, coping with the familiar feeling of boredom and anxiety by flicking through a game on my phone. My daughter dozes in the climate-controlled isolette in front of me. I glance up at the white board hanging on the wall. My daughter lost 20…

  • The origins of pediatrics as a clinical and academic specialty in the United States

    Colin Phoon New York, USA   Children’s ward, Bellevue Hospital, New York, ca. 1897 (Courtesy of the National Library of Medicine, NLM ID# 101435915) In the long timeline of medicine, pediatrics is a recent clinical field. The first children’s hospital in the world was established in Paris in 1802, followed by the Hospital for Sick…