The experiences of medical training are some of the most profound and the most privileged a person can have. The tradition of physician writers is partly in response to this: story is one way of helping us to make meaning of the deep events of our lives and to reflect that meaning back into the community. Those of us who welcome these stories do so, in part anyway, because we value the inside view that such voices and stories can provide us. For those of us "with ears to hear," such stories are an entry into very human experiences.

In Our Hands is an anthology of works written by medical students and residents from across Canada. The collection includes fiction, creative non-fiction and poetry to provide a taste of the wonder, the challenges and the graphic realities that are the experiences of those learning to care for us all. It is an emotionally charged and rich territory indeed, this place of "laying on of hands" that is medicine at its finest.

Our hands are unique maps of who we are, who we have been. For those who are learning the privilege of being a physician, studying the hand is done with extra care. In the anatomy lab, it is a profound and poetic initiation. They will continue on to learn that the art of medicine is one of connection and engagement.

Linda E. Clarke is a writer and professional performance storyteller who has taught at Dalhousie University Faculty of Medicine, Columbia Medical School, the University of Toronto, and the Yale School of Medicine

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Jeff Nisker is a clinician, researcher, university professor, and writer. His plays and short stories bring the general public, health professionals, and policy makers to the position of persons immersed in the social inequities of new scientific capacities. Jeff has received many research grants in the basic, clinical, and social sciences to study prevention of estrogen-related cancer, ethical and social issues in reproductive genetics, and the lack of accommodation that persons with disabilities receive for health promotion. Jeff has also co-held a Canadian Institutes of Health Research/Health Canada grant to research public engagement and citizen deliberation for health policy development through his innovative use of full-length theatre. Jeff has authored or co-authored over 170 peer-reviewed scientific articles and book chapters, many short stories, and seven plays published in the collection From Calcedonies to Orchids: Plays Promoting Humanity in Health Policy. His plays have been performed throughout Canada, in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, and South Africa. Jeff has served on the editorial boards of Journal of Medical Humanities and ARS Medica and is the international representative on the Board of the Centre for Literature and Medicine. Jeff has served national positions such as Co-chair of Health Canada’s Advisory Committee on Reproductive and Genetic Technologies; Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology Canada; Scientific Officer of the CIHR Peer Review Committee on Health Ethics, Law and Humanities; and Executive of the Canadian Bioethics Society. Jeff has received many research and education awards, including the Society of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists of Canada President’s Award for the most significant contribution to the specialty; Western University’s Faculty Scholar’s Award for Innovation in Research and Education; and, for his plays promoting public engagement in health policy, Canada’s Royal Conservatory of Music’s Music Excellence in Education Award, which recognizes the efforts of an outstanding educator who embraces the idea that the arts have a capacity to change the world. He was one of the first two obstetrician-gynaecologists inducted into the Canadian Academy of Health Sciences. Through all this, Jeff has maintained his clinical practice in hormone-dependent malignancy, pituitary tumours, and reproductive endocrinology.

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