All You Lefty's Out there....

Nurses General Nursing

Published

  1. Are You Left Handed?

    • 28
      Left Handed
    • 6
      Right Handed
    • 5
      Ambidextrous - Use both left and right

39 members have participated

:coollook: Just out of curiosity, how many of you nurses out there are left handed?

Hi Texasdoll,

You are ambidextrous. Actually, lots of people who write with their left hands are, so you aren't an odd ball.

Left handedness occurs across a broad spectrum. Some folks only write with their left hands and do everything else with their right, some folks do some tasks lefty and some tasks righty, and some folks do everything lefty.

UOTE=texasdoll]write somewhat well with my left hand - print better with my right

everything like sewing, IV's, etc. all with my right hand? what does that make me? the odd ball? :rotfl:

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Specializes in er, pediatric er.

I have to put the phone to my left ear, too!! It seems like I can't hear as good with the phone on the right!

I'm a lefty too!! :D

I do almost everything with my left-hand, except use scissors!! I hated it when I was in elementary and we'd do a project, the teacher would pass out the scissors and say "all of you left-handers raise your hand", so I would raise my hand. Then she would give us left-handed scissors. Ok it was not very easy cutting with my right hand using left-handed scissors :rolleyes:

But everything else I do left-handed. And I'm "left-eared" too. I can only talk on the phone with the phone up to left ear, I never can have it up to my right ear!

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Specializes in Long Term Care.

I am left handed but it is weak for I carried both babies with my right arm so that I could do stuff with my left arm.

My mom thought something was wrong with me because when I was learning to write I would write mirror image form right to left ( I can still do that ) I write now with my page turned almost upside down. I cannot write on a dry erase or chalk board with my left hand.(i could if I wrote up from the bottom to the top)

I cut right handed and crochet and knit left handed. I can throw a baseball and bowl with either hand with the same lack of accuracy.

The hardest part of being left handed in school is when we discected the cat in A&P and the pictures for tests. I for some reason can not tell from my left or right with out thinking hard about it. All the pictures and cat is "their" left so looking at a picture my left side is the actual right side. so looking at it and being a bit confused to begin with and all my right handed friends saying it is just the opposite of what you are. I say ok that is my left (right actually) so that is the right blah blah.. it was very confusing but I still made an A ...

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Specializes in Research,Peds,Neuro,Psych,.
I have to put the phone to my left ear, too!! It seems like I can't hear as good with the phone on the right!

Same with me! Have to carry my purse on the left too or else it slides down my shoulder...

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Me too! If I put the phone to my right ear, I feel like I can't hear as well either. I am glad I am not the only one!!

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Specializes in PICU, Nurse Educator, Clinical Research.

I'm highly left-dominant...write, cut, eat, etc., with my left hand. if someone drops something and I reach out to grab it, it's always my left hand. I start out walking on my left foot. When my fiancee and I cook in my tiny apartment kitchen (he's a lefty, too), we love how we can work side-by-side and not get in one another's way.

In school (which I finished today!! YAY!!!), I had a horrible time learning to tie restraints- the instructor is right-handed. I ended up learning at work from a left-handed nurse, and had it down after watching him once!

Setting up to do foleys (once I figured out how- also after watching a lefty nurse) actually works well, if someone else is doing something else (I'm thinking a new admit in the ICU) like inserting an IV or an NG...one person's on the right, one's on the left, so you stay out of each other's space.

My guess is that IV insertion (didn't get a lot of practice in school) would be easier as a lefty, if you go for the non-dominant hand of the patient...which, for most of them, will be the left. What do you think?

Also, a pet peeve of mine in school was the text description of procedures in some books that *always* described things from the right-hander's point of view. A few used the terms "dominant" and "non-dominant", which is better, but a bit wordy.

Oh, another one- computer mice!! There are computers at the bedside where I work, and the mice are always positioned for right-handers....usually, I pull the mouse over to the other side if I'll be using it for any extended period of time. But lately, I've run across setups where the mouse cord is extremely short- I suppose it's to keep them from being dropped or damaged. but I HATE having it there...I end up doing the left-hand crossover!

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Lefty here too, but I golf right handed, play soft-ball right handed oh! and I kick a ball with my left foot! I am so messed up! LMAO!!

I am like you...except righthanded when righting. When i play baseball i hit lefty, i kick a ball with my left leg, when i swim my left side is stronger then my right, and i catch balls lefty. wierd.

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I open the refrigerator with my left hand, so I can pull out the coke fastest with my right :chuckle

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Specializes in Pediatrics.
Oh, another one- computer mice!! There are computers at the bedside where I work, and the mice are always positioned for right-handers....usually, I pull the mouse over to the other side if I'll be using it for any extended period of time. But lately, I've run across setups where the mouse cord is extremely short- I suppose it's to keep them from being dropped or damaged. but I HATE having it there...I end up doing the left-hand crossover!

That's actually one thing I've acclamated to, I'm a right-handed clicker!! And it feels quite natural.

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I am a lefty also. I recall a time in LPN school when we were practicing putting on gloves using sterile technique and one of the snooty girls in my class tried to point out to me that i was putting the gloves on wrong because i was starting with my left hand. She looked stupid when i told her that i was left handed and the nursing instructor told her to mind her own business. That was so funny.

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I know that feeling....I have the awfulest time finding landmarks I hate to give IM injections.

Don't give up- yoiu can learn to do it left handed. While I have learned to do a lot of things with the right-I still give injections left-handed and teach that way too! I even learned to knit left-handed.

Lefty's unite! After all we are the one's who are right brained.

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Specializes in geriatric.

ambidextrous. write with right hand though. i consider myself lucky to be able to be able to switch hands easily. it makes it much easier to cath someone or give an injection without worrying about what side of the bed i am on.:)

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