Take a look at these hands.

These aren't so manly, are they?

I wear a size eight glove. Only a few of the male surgeons I work with wear gloves as large as mine, and I'm not aware of any other females who do. Often times, when I finish scrubbing first and enter the room before the surgeon, the scrub tech will try to give me the smaller pair of gloves, assuming that a female must wear the smaller size. This stereotypical division of size according to gender also occurs in restaurants. If I am out with a male friend and we both order the same item, whether it be steak or dessert, the larger portion will always be given to the man. This recently happened with a dessert and when I pointed out to the server that my friends portion was bigger than mine, she suggested I trade him. Since the plate had already been set down in front of him, my food compulsions (oh yeah, they go way beyond simply not allowing certain foods to touch each other!) would not allow this.
A good friend of mine recently began calling me "Man Hands." Anytime we give each other a ration of shit he says "O.K. M.H." While I was out of the room, one of the surgeons finally asked him what M.H. stood for. My friend informed him that it meant Man Hands and suggested the surgeon call me that also. Well, as you can imagine, size eight hands don't belong to a demure, petite, fawn-like Barbie. I'm a full six-foot-zero and while I'm not heavy, I'm big enough to take care of myself. When he told the surgeon to call me Man Hands, the surgeon replied, " I guess it's O.K. to call her that, as long as she doesn't mind!"
The funny side of the nickname is that famous Seinfeld episode, Bizarro Jerry where Jerry dates the woman with Man Hands.



The practical side of the nickname is the fact that large hands are often a blessing in surgery. In ortho I assisted on a proximal humerus fracture just last week and I was able to hold two hohmanns under tension by spanning the wound with my left hand, thumb on the right hohmann, pinkie and ring finger on the left hohmann, while providing suction with my right hand. In a difficult trauma splenectomy earlier this month on an overweight male with guts that insisted on getting in the surgeons visual field, I was able to use my left hand backhanded to sweep guts out of the way while temporarily holding the tail of a suture placed on a stubborn bleeder between my left thumb and forefinger. Meanwhile, my right hand was occupied with maintaining traction on a large rich. I think the surgeon (my F.T.S.*) even made a comment about my hand span(?) though I don't remember it now.
There are occasions where size eights are a hindrance. In vascular surgery where 6-0 and 7-0 suture is often used and one must follow suture (maintain slight tension on the suture as the surgeon sews) with just the right amount of tension so as not to tear through the vessel, I feel like the proverbial bull in the china shop. When trying to provide traction on tissues deep in a narrow male pelvic cavity, my size eights are sometimes in the way of the surgeons field of view. If anyone has been wondering if I like the nickname or not, I do. All in all, I think my Man Hands are pretty handy.

*Favorite Trauma Surgeon