Acad Med. 2024 Aug 1;99(8):868-873. doi: 10.1097/ACM.0000000000005627. Epub 2023 Dec 28.
Left-handed medical students contend with unique educational barriers within surgery, such as lack of educational resources, lack of left-handed-specific training, and widespread stigmatization of surgical left-handedness. This study aimed to highlight the surgical experiences of left-handed medical students so educators may be empowered to act with greater care and appreciation of these students' circumstances.
In this qualitative study, the authors conducted semistructured interviews on surgical experiences during medical school between January 31, 2021, and June 20, 2021, on 31 current surgical residents and fellows from 15 U.S. institutions and 6 surgical specialties. Left-handed trainees were included regardless of their surgical hand dominance.
The authors identified 3 themes related to left-handed medical students' surgical experience: (1) disorienting advice from faculty or residents, (2) discouraging right-handed pressures and left-handed stigmatization, and (3) educational wishes of left-handed medical students. Trainees describe dialogues during medical school in which their handedness was directly addressed by residents and faculty with disorienting and nonbeneficial advice. Often trainees were explicitly told which hand to use, neglecting any preferences of the left-handed student. Participants also described possible changes in future surgical clerkships, including normalization of left-handedness, tangible mentorship, or granular and meaningful instruction.
Left-handed medical students encounter unique challenges during their surgical education. These students report being disoriented by the variability of advice provided by mentors, discouraged by how pressured they feel to operate right-handed, and burdened by the need to figure things out by themselves in the absence of adequate left-handed educational resources. Surgical education leadership should detail the unique problems left-handed learners face, impartially elicit the learner's current operative hand preference, take responsibility for their left-handed students, promote acceptance and accommodation strategies of left-handed surgical trainees, and endeavor to improve the breadth of left-handed surgical resources.
左撇子医学生在外科领域面临着独特的教育障碍，例如缺乏教育资源、缺乏专门针对左撇子的培训以及对手术中左撇子的普遍污名化。本研究旨在强调左撇子医学生的外科经历，以便教育工作者能够更加关注并理解这些学生的情况，并采取更谨慎的行动。
在这项定性研究中，作者于 2021 年 1 月 31 日至 2021 年 6 月 20 日期间，对来自美国 15 所机构和 6 个外科专业的 31 名现任外科住院医师和研究员进行了关于医学生时期外科经历的半结构化访谈。无论手术手优势如何，左撇子学员都包括在内。
作者确定了与左撇子医学生外科经历相关的 3 个主题：（1）教师或住院医师提供的令人困惑的建议；（2）抑制惯用右手的压力和对左撇子的污名化；（3）左撇子医学生的教育愿望。学员描述了在校期间与住院医师和教师之间的对话，其中直接提到了他们的惯用手，教师和住院医师提供了令人困惑且无益的建议。教师往往明确告诉学生使用哪只手，而忽略了左撇子学生的任何偏好。参与者还描述了未来外科实习可能发生的变化，包括惯用手的正常化、有形的指导或细致而有意义的指导。
左撇子医学生在外科教育中遇到了独特的挑战。这些学生报告说，他们被导师提供的多变建议搞得晕头转向，感到被迫用右手做手术的压力很大，而且在缺乏足够的左撇子教育资源的情况下，他们不得不自己摸索，这给他们带来了负担。外科教育领导层应详细说明左撇子学习者面临的独特问题，公正地了解学习者目前的手术惯用手偏好，对其左撇子学生负责，促进对左撇子外科受训者的接受和适应策略，并努力提高左撇子外科资源的广度。
