Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: Wisdom

  • Being our best selves: hidden in full view

    James StollerPeter ReaAlan KolpCleveland, Ohio, United States We live in a paradox framed by a tension between age-old wisdom about excellence and our current state. The paradox is this: our behaviors and our priorities are often at odds with age-old truths about how we can be our best selves. This paradox—that these truths are widely…

  • Between frames: Liminality and the emergence of self

    Jane PersonsIowa City, Iowa, United States The development of compassion, along with wisdom, skill, and communication, is pivotally important to the practice of medicine.1 Perhaps even more importantly, development of personal character – such as through a medical education that emphasizes ethics, professionalism, and the humanities – is critical to the emergence of effective and…

  • Eliot’s triad: Information, knowledge, and wisdom in medicine

    Anthony PapagiannisThessaloniki, Greece Where is the Wisdom we have lost in Knowledge?Where is the Knowledge we have lost in Information? I first saw these well-known lines by T. S. Eliot1 inscribed as a motto on the flyleaf of a Greek textbook on internal medicine. I was a student then, and almost a quarter of a…