Rough Hands, Soft Heart: The Unseen Beauty of Nurse’s Hands
A Subway Encounter
I was in the subway today, and in true New Yorker fashion, I kept my eyes focused straight ahead, anywhere but on my fellow passengers.
But try as I might, my gaze kept drifting back to a particular passenger—specifically, her hands.
They were long, supple, and adorned with bright shades of pink, red, and yellow, sprinkled generously with sparkles. It was clear these nails were designed to grab attention.
Out of the blue, I remembered Ahlam, my Egyptian nurse coworker from my time working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Ahlam’s Story
Ahlam once told me about an encounter she had with a patient’s relative. The woman had long, bright red nails and hands that looked incredibly soft—almost too soft for someone who’s ever washed a dish, let alone a patient.
Ahlam confessed that she felt embarrassed about her own hands—short, unmanicured nails, rough and worn out from constant hand washing between patients.
Now, sitting on the subway, after staring at the woman’s silky-soft-looking, well-manicured hands for what felt like minutes on end, I looked down at my own hands.
I examined my nails the way Sherlock Holmes might scrutinize a clue with his handy-dandy magnifying glass, and I suddenly understood exactly how Ahlam had felt.
The State of My Hands
My hands were dry and wrinkly, with short, unpolished, and unevenly cut nails.
If my hands could talk, they’d probably be screaming for moisture like a cactus in the Sahara. Or maybe they’d be more like an old, creaky door, desperately crying out for some WD-40
Self-consciously, I clenched my hands to hide my untended nails. I started scrolling through my phone, pretending to be engrossed in the screen before me.
But I refused to let cortisol—the stress hormone—rear its ugly head and drag me into a mental pool of self-pity and shame.
Instead, I put on my SpongeBob SquarePants hat—you know, the perpetually cheerful and upbeat TV character who lives in a pineapple under the sea and approaches every situation with enthusiasm and a positive attitude.
It didn’t take long for my ever-cheerful alter ego to start seeing things differently.
What These Hands Have Accomplished
Sure, my hands might look like they’ve been through war with a bottle of hand sanitizer (yup. it looks like the sanitizer won), but let’s think about what these hands—and the hands of nurses and healthcare workers like me—have accomplished.
If my hands could speak, they’d tell stories of the countless times they’ve held a patient’s hand during a difficult procedure, supported a head while they cried or vomited, or cradled newborns as they came into the world.
They’d recount tales of holding the stuff others would run from—blood, pee, poop, spit, earwax, pus, and other body fluids.
These hands have held tools and equipment used to diagnose, treat, or prevent infection and disease.
They’ve prepared medications to soothe or cure symptoms, battled with keyboards to document findings and observations needed to evaluate the outcome of a plan of care, and communicated through gestures, emphasizing thoughts and feelings on patient care.

The Olympic Hand-Washing Marathon
In dialysis, hand hygiene is emphasized to the point of obsession. Imagine running a marathon, but instead of just hitting the pavement, you have to stop every few steps to wash your hands—over and over again.
Now, multiply that by the number of times a nurse or technician touches a patient, the dialysis machine, or anything in the treatment area.
We’re talking thousands of hand washes in a single day!
In a busy dialysis unit with 20 patients per shift across 3 or 4 shifts, it’s like the entire unit is competing in an Olympic hand-washing marathon.
By the end of the day, we’ve washed our hands so many times that if hand-washing were a sport, we’d be giving Carlos Yulo a run for his money. (For those who don’t know, Carlos is a world champion gymnast from the Philippines, known for his incredible strength and precision.)
Sure, he’s got double gold medals and as a price, he was given a condo unit and a lifetime supply of pizza and ramen, but let’s be real—
if they handed out awards for hand-washing, we’d probably earn a lifetime supply of colonoscopies too!
But you know what? Each of those hand washes represents a moment of care, a gesture of protection for our patients.
Our hands might not win any beauty contests, but they’ve won battles against infection, provided comfort to the scared, and quite literally helped keep people alive.
A New Perspective
I looked back at the woman with the fancy nails. Sure, they were pretty, but could they insert an IV in a patient with veins more elusive than a politician’s promises?
Could they deftly manage the complex choreography of a dialysis machine? Probably not without chipping that perfect polish.
A healthcare worker’s hands, on the other hand, (pun absolutely intended), are built for action.
They’re the multi-purpose tool of the medical world—always ready, even if they’re not always pretty.
And let’s not forget the stories these hands could tell if they could talk.
They’d speak of the countless times they’ve held a patient’s hand during a difficult procedure, of the high-fives shared with colleagues after a particularly challenging day, of the gentle touch that sometimes says more than words ever could.

A Badge of Honor
As the subway rattled on, I unclenched my fists and looked at my hands with newfound appreciation.
These weren’t just hands; they were instruments of healing, tools of comfort, and yes, champions of hygiene.
So to all my fellow nurses out there, who could probably teach fish a thing or two about living in water, let’s wear our dry, overworked hands as badges of honor.
Celebrate every crack, every callus, and every short nail as a testament to our care.
And hey, if anyone asks about our less-than-glamorous hands, we can always say these hands have been through the trenches, working tirelessly to care for others.
Because at the end of the day, that’s exactly what they are—hands that heal, hands that comfort, and hands that matter.
Where Beauty Truly Lies
As the subway slowed to my stop, I took one last glance at the woman with the fancy nails. I smiled to myself, no longer feeling self-conscious.
My hands may not be pretty, but they’re pretty amazing!
And as I stepped off the train, I realized that true beauty isn’t about perfectly polished nails—it’s about perfectly compassionate care.
So here’s to all of us with rough hands and soft hearts.
Our hands may tell stories of hard work and countless washings, but they also tell stories of lives touched, pain eased, and care given.
And that, my friends, is a manicure no salon could ever match.