By Lisa McGuire

Photo by: Allison Thompson

After many years of dedicated service, our male skeleton Fred is fast approaching retirement. While we wish him the best of luck in whatever his future holds (Editor’s note: He’s going to be scrapped for parts in our bone box, shhhh!!!), it’s time to welcome a new male skeleton to HSL’s collection. 

Before he’s ready for prime-time, he needs a name. This is where you come in! We need you to vote on his new name – votes can be made online via this poll, or in-person at our service desk on the 5th floor of PWB. 

We’ve asked our colleagues in the Wangensteen Library of Biology & Medicine to help us find names that honor someone from the past who made contributions to scientific knowledge in the health sciences. They did, and here’s the list of names you can choose from:

• Henry Gray – British anatomist and surgeon, best known for his 1858 textbook Gray’s Anatomy 
• Charles Darwin – evolutionary biologist who pioneered the ideas of natural selection and common ancestors
• Owen Wangensteen – namesake for PWB and WHL, chairman of the U of M’s department of surgery in the mid-20th century, and innovator of a widely-practiced surgical technique known as ‘Wangensteen suction’
• Seishu Hanaoka –  Japanese surgeon of the Edo period and the first to perform surgery using general anesthesia

Voting is open now! Let’s get a name for the new kid on the block who will join Clara, our female skeleton for some studying fun!