Time for a sinister practice
Editor - Roper in his personal view has
addressed an issue that concerns many.1
for left handers it is hard still to be discriminated against in the medical profession,
even now at the beginning of the 21st
century, although we make up more than
12$ of the population. Any discrimination
by race, colour or creed rightly makes news,
yet that against left handed people goes
unnoticed.
I do not understand why I have to examine a patient from the right, using a hand
that feels unnatural, when I know I could
perform the job better from the left. No consultant has been able to answer my
questions, and several have told me that it is
only in Britain that patients must be
examined from the right. In general practice
I learnt that eliciting reflexes is impossible
using my right hand, but I am not allowed to
use my left. The problems continued in surgery. I was the source of much amusement
in the operating theatre when, scrubbed up
and assisting the consultant surgeon, I could
not get the scissors to cut. Even in the Charing Cross hospital, a busy West London
teaching hospital, there is not a single pair of
left handed scissors.
I know this problem is not just restricted
to me. In a second year lecture on brain
damage all the left handers were invited to
stand up (apparently we are brain dam.
aged!). We made up just over 10% of the
students in the lecture theatre. This
problem could be resolved if everyone was
more flexible and accommodated our
needs. Maybe then I could take my clinical
examinations at the end of february using
my dominant hand.
Cat Johnson, first year clinical student, Imperial College School of Medicine, London FI2 1PG
Email: catherine.johnson@ic.ac.uk
studentBMJ 2000;08:45-88 March ISSN 0966-6494
- Roper TA. Time for a sinister practice. studentBMJ 2000;8:42. (february.)
