Hektoen International

A Journal of Medical Humanities

Tag: hands

  • A lesson in physiology

    Anthony Papagiannis Thessaloniki, Greece   Waterfront Promenade, Thessaloniki, Greece. Photograph by the author. The contours are quite familiar, both to the eye and the touch. My hand strokes its counterpart, its twin sibling: they have been working together ever since I first saw the light of the day in this world. They have washed, clasped,…

  • of little significance

    Vamsi Reddy Keri Jones Augusta, Georgia, United States       VAMSI REDDY is a third-year medical student at the Medical College of Georgia. He completed his undergraduate education at Augusta University in the inaugural class of the BS/MD accelerated medical program. Vamsi enjoys the beauty which pervades through the medical field and has taken to…

  • Hands

    Laura White Rochester, Minnesota, United States   I have long been ambivalent toward my prematurely wrinkled hands. This is a combination of my mother’s distaste for her own mitts – I am so sorry you got my hands – and the various comments of others referencing “old lady hands” and similar sentiments. My self-hand-concept has been historically unglamorous.…

  • Red right hand: ectrodactyly as a metaphor

    Erin Crouch Katelyn McDonald Tacoma, Washington   ECTRODACTYLY, by Katelyn McDonald. At left, the hand bones of an individual with typical development. At right, an example of ectrodactyly, with underdeveloped or missing phalanges and metacarpals. Artwork sourced directly from the artist. December 30th 2017 (Artwork in private collection of the artist). Hands make us human.…

  • Surgeon’s hands in Vesalius’s portraits and Rembrandt’s The Anatomy Lesson of Dr. Tulp

    Adéla Janíčková Prague, Czech Republic   Fig 1: Anon, Frontispiece, 1543. From Andreas Vesalius, De humani corporis fabrica libri septem, 1543 “To extol the human hand as a monument to God’s wisdom, an instrument that permits humans to create civilization” This statement by Dolores Mitchell1 describes the human hand as both a monument to divinity and…