The hands of the doctor, the nurse, the person who takes your blood are their most important instruments. They read the lump in your breast or they steady your arm for the invasion of a needle. Their touch is professional, yet personal. Your family and friends, perhaps, but not your lawyer or accountant. Cat-Tien Vo hopes to explore the mercurial nature of hands in health care through a personal photography project squeezed in between her classes and studying.
Hands are often the first things a patient sees.
A lot of time they give comfort to a patient. Vo's project is an artistic release from her studies, but it also allows her to contemplate the human side of medicine, the aspect not often touched on in her textbooks or classroom activities. Not one to neglect her creative, right side of the brain under the decidedly methodical, left-brain rigors of medical school, Vo is an energetic proponent of a balanced medical education. The program sponsors classes and activities in the performing arts, the culinary arts, visual arts and writing. When she was a young child, Vo's father gave her a Polaroid camera and let her loose in the back yard.