Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: X-rays

  • Sarah’s lesson

    Henri ColtLaguna Beach, California, United States Sarah put her hand on my forearm and dug a fingernail into my white coat. “Doc, I druther you not call my husband in just yet,” she said. “Doc?” I smiled. “You never call me Doc.” I finished installing the morphine pump and set the dose at an hourly…

  • John Francis Hall-Edwards—a radiology pioneer

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK John Francis Hall-Edwards was born on 19 December 1858 in the Kings Norton area of Birmingham, United Kingdom. He was educated at King Edwards School in Birmingham followed by Queen’s College, Birmingham where he studied medicine and was an apprentice to Professor Richard Norris.1,2 He qualified in medicine in 1885. Norris…

  • Cinema MD: A History of Medicine on Screen

    Arpan K. BanerjeeSolihull, UK In 1895 Wilhelm Röntgen discovered X-rays in his lab in Wurzburg and the Lumiere brothers demonstrated cinema in Paris. X-rays revolutionized medical practice by enabling doctors to see inside the body for the first time without resorting to surgery. Cinema, also a form of image production, revolutionized entertainment in the twentieth…

  • A perfect day

    Mike EllmanChicago, Illinois, United States Hematology rounds start with chalkboard presentations. After posting the admission date, the laboratory results, the hospital course, and our recommendations, we hunch over microscopes to view the blood smears and bone marrow aspirations before marching en masse to the patients’ rooms. As the senior resident in charge, I direct this…

  • X-ray art

    Byung Kook KwakChung-Ang University Hospital, Seoul, Korea A radiologist uses medical imaging instruments to peer inside the human body in the search of abnormality, but the product of medical imaging, the x-ray, is also a form of photography. Like light, x-rays inherently sensitize a film or plate. As the x-ray penetrates an object, it transfers…