Abstract
It has been suggested that the proportion of left-handed people, or more specifically, the greater acknowledgement of left-handedness over the past century may be due to fewer left-handed people being ‘forced’ to use their right hand to conform to the ‘norm’, rather than a greater incidence of left-handedness (McManus, 2002). There are approximately 27,000 midwives in the UK (Royal College of Midwives (RCM), 2015); however there is no official data as to the proportion of midwives who are left-handed, nor research into whether they practise with left-handed dominance. This article was inspired by hearing the experiences in practice of first year student midwives who are left-handed. It also documents the experiences of Julie, a left-handed Senior Lecturer in Midwifery who trained in the early 1980s. Questions raised by this article include whether the left-handed student midwives of today have different experiences in practice to those of 30 years ago?; should all student midwives be trained to practise with right-handed dominance or should student midwives be supported and encouraged to practise intuitively, according to their natural dominance?
Original language | English |
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Pages (from-to) | 656-659 |
Number of pages | 4 |
Journal | British Journal of Midwifery |
Volume | 24 |
Issue number | 9 |
Early online date | 1 Sept 2016 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | E-pub ahead of print - 1 Sept 2016 |
Keywords
- Left-handed
- midwife
- episiotomy
- simulation
- clinical practice