Connect
MJA
MJA

Hand surgeon

Erin Shiel
Med J Aust 2015; 202 (5): 246. || doi: 10.5694/mja14.01332
Published online: 16 March 2015

He turns the boy's hand
back and over feeling each

joint and bone. More useful than an x-ray.
Only hands can fix hands the way diamonds
can cut diamonds. He holds the thumb

affectionately, the ugly cousin, stumpy and awkward.
Yet indispensable in its opposition. But he loves all the digits
and the way that hands, like Swiss army knives, spring

tools for screwing, scratching, sensing. Tacked
on the wall there is a photograph, surrounded
by his framed degrees — a pudgy toddler's hand

waving in the sun, scarred
but whole. Thanking, without
words, as only a hand can.

  • Erin Shiel1

  • University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW.


Correspondence: eshiel@bigpond.net.au

Author

remove_circle_outline Delete Author
add_circle_outline Add Author

Comment
Do you have any competing interests to declare? *

I/we agree to assign copyright to the Medical Journal of Australia and agree to the Conditions of publication *
I/we agree to the Terms of use of the Medical Journal of Australia *
Email me when people comment on this article

Online responses are no longer available. Please refer to our instructions for authors page for more information.