Sewaktu belajar subjek Operative Surgery, aku sedar bahawa menjadi seorang 'left-handed' = kidal memang punyai keistimewaan.
Cikgu yg mengajar Operative Surgery, Alejandro Gracia adalah left-hander. Sewaktu kelas pertama lagi beliau bertanya siapa antara kami left-hander. Dan semua orang menuding jari ke arah aku
"She's the only one left-hander".
Aku terpinga-pinga. Owhh aku seorang je ke left-handed in my group (mmg tak perasan dan tak ambil tahu pon sebelum ini). Menurut statistik, hanya 7-10% of adult population adalah left-hander. Jadi, cikgu pon berkata,
"Actually being a left-hander is a good thing for a surgeon"
Jadi otak aku menfasirkan , most of surgeons are left-handers. Ini aku tak tahu tapi itulah yang dapat aku tafsirkan. Mungkin beliau kata begitu sebab nak cakap 'he used to be a good surgeon long time ago'. OK whatever.
Kebanyakan surgical instuments juga direka untuk right-hander. Sewaktu mengendalikan
'hemostatic forcep' dan
'needle holder', jari ku sedikit sakit dan merah2. Jadi bila aku cuba untuk mengendalikan dengan tangan kanan (sekadar bereskperimen), kurang sikit kesakitan. Jadi memang alat itu sesuai untuk right-hander. Aku tak kisah laa semua itu sebab aku hidup di dunia tangan kanan, jadi aku perlu ikut rentak tangan kanan. Jangan manjakan diri.
Cikgu juga mengajar special lesson kepada ku,
surgical knot for left-hander. Beliau cakap, to be a good surgeon u have to use both hands. Jadi aku berlatih buat surgical knot with both hands. And the surgical knot turns out to be so neat and strong sampaikan ade orang tanya
"ni surgical knot ke?? apsal lawa sangat??" ahahah itu aku tak tahu tp aku ikut apa yang cikgu suruh.
Mengetahui bahawa seorang surgeon itu left-hander atau right-hander juga penting untuk seorang operative nurse. Cara untuk memberi surgical tools kepada left-hander surgeon juga ade cara tertentu. Cara untuk memegang needle dengan needle holder juga lain. Sebab itu aku punya
needle holder (yg sudah diletakkan needle) orang lain tak boleh pakai. Hanya aku punya. Dan aku juga tak boleh pakai orang lain punya.
Ada satu surgical instrument yang direka untuk both left-hander and right-hander surgeon. Namanya,
'ligature carrier'. Hanya ada satu untuk left-hander and ade 3 untuk right-hander. Jadi aku tak payah berebut dengan orang lain kerana alat itu hanya untuk aku seorang (dan cikgu). Hahhahah itu memang bagus.
Ini ada sedikit info about
causes of left-handedness :
- Hand orientation is developed in unborn children, most commonly determined by observing which hand is predominantly licked or held close to the mouth.
- In 2007, researchers discovered LRRTM the first gene linked to increased odds of being left-handed. The researchers also found evidence that possessing one particular form of this gene slightly raises the risk of psychotic mental illnesses such as schizophrenia. (OMG, is this really true??)
- Long-term impairment of the right hand: People with long-term impairment of the right hand are more likely to become left-handed, even after their right hand heals.Such long-term impairment is defined as eight months or more.
- Testosterone : Exposure to higher rates of testosterone before birth can lead to a left-handed child. This is the Geschwind theory, named after the neurologist who proposed it, Norman Geschwind. It suggests that variations in levels of testosterone during pregnancy shape the development of the fetal brain. Testosterone suppresses the growth of the left cerebral hemisphere and so more neurons migrate to the right hemisphere. The highly developed right hemisphere is now better suited to function as the center of language and handedness. The fetus is more likely to become left-handed, since the right hemisphere controls the left half of the body. The theory goes on to tie the exposure to higher levels of testosterone and the resultant right-hemisphere dominance to auto-immune disorders, learning disorders, dyslexia, and stuttering, as well as increased spatial ability.
Menjadi seorang left-hander memang mempunyai banyak kelemahan. Aku berikan contoh :
- Gunting. Dulu sewaktu kecil, aku mahu bantu mak menjahit. Jadi mak menyuruh aku menggunting kain yang telah dibuat garisan. Tugas aku hanya memotong ikut garisan. Jadi gunting itu memang tidak fleksibel langsung sebab gunting ada 2 lubang. Satu untuk masukkan ibu jari, satu untuk masukkan jari lain. Jadi lekok-lekok gunting itu memang menyebabkan tangan aku sakit. Dan guntingan aku mmg tak kemas langsung. Mak faham dan suruh aku buat kerja lain. Jadi selepas itu aku sudah tak mahu membantu mak menjahit.(kecewa)
- Tikus komputer memang direka khas untuk tangan kanan. Owhh ini aku tak sedar. Sejak kali pertama aku mengenali komputer, memang sudah terbiasa menggunakan tikus dengan tangan kanan. Tapi cepat letih especially ketika bermain game menggunakan tikus. Oleh itu, aku lebih gemar game yang menggunakan keypad. (tiada diskriminasi)
- Tin-opener. Dulu bermasalah. Sekarang tidak lagi. Kebiasaan orang akan membuka tin dengan menghala ke depan (forward direction). Tapi aku akan menjadi (reverse direction). dan orang sekali pandang memang pelik tapi at least aku pandai membuka tin.(sapa tak pandai bukak tin cepat mengaku)
- Handwriting. Menjadi left-hander memang susah kalau pakai wet-ink. Kamu tahu mengapa?? sebab kita menulis dari kiri ke kanan. so we often lifting and replacing the hand over fresh ink which can cause smudging. Sebab itu aku tak suka wet-ink.
- Camera. The only camera ever produced for left-handers was the half-frame Yashica Samurai. Cameras predominantly have the hand grip, shutter release, film wind lever and commonly used selection buttons, switches and dials controlled by the right hand, lens controls (where present) tend to be accessible by either hand. When a left handed person uses a right handed camera the hand control can be less steady and hence produce camera shake leading to poorer pictures at low shutter speeds. When cameras were predominantly mechanical, or later electro mechanical, it would be difficult and hence expensive to produce a left handed version of a right handed camera. Video-cameras also tend to have the handstrap on the rightside of the camera. Thus the camera must be held using the right hand, which often leads to a more shakey video being captured. (extracted from Wikipedia).
- Way in giving direction. Memang payah untuk membezakan kiri dan kanan. Kalau kamu tanya aku "Angkat tangan kanan" aku akan berfikir lama lalu teragak-agak untuk mengangkat tangan mana satu. Hhahah. Kalau kamu tunjuk tangan kiri aku dan bertanya "Ini tangan apa??" memang lama untuk aku menjawab. hahaha. Pernah satu hari abah bertanya direction "Ni nak pusing kiri ke kanan??" Lalu aku dgn confident jawab "Kanan-kanan" padahal sebelah kanan memang takda simpang untuk dibelok. Owhh abah memang nak kenakan aku. Mak juga dari kecil melatih aku tentang tangan kiri dan kanan. Tapi otak aku memproses 'tangan ini untuk makan' (kanan) dan ' tangan ini untuk basuh berak'(kiri).
Possible effects in humans on thinking :
There are many theories on how being left-handed affects the way a person thinks. One theory divides left- and right-handed thinkers into two camps: visual simultaneous vs. linear sequential.
According to this theory, right-handed people are thought to process information using a "linear sequential" method in which one thread must complete its processing before the next thread can be started.
Left-handed persons are thought to process information using a "visual simultaneous" method in which several threads can be processed simultaneously.
Another way to view this is such: Suppose there were one thousand pieces of popcorn and one of them was colored blue. Right-handed people—using the linear sequential processing style—would look at the popcorn one at a time until they encountered the blue one. The left-handed person would spread out the pieces of popcorn and look at all of them to find the one that was blue. A side effect of these differing styles of processing is that right-handers need to complete one task before they can start the next. Left-handers, by contrast, are capable and comfortable switching between tasks.(owhh yes it happened to me!!). This seems to suggest that left-handed people have an excellent ability to multi-task, and anecdotal evidence that they are more creative may stem from this ability to multi-task. (i am more comfortable with multi-tasking job which is required me not to settle some works one by one. It have to be all-at-once. Seperti gelojoh dan kelam-kabut)
Right-handed people process information using "analysis", which is the method of solving a problem by breaking it down to its pieces and analyzing the pieces one at a time. By contrast, left-handed people process information using "synthesis", which is the method of solving a problem by looking at the whole and trying to use pattern-matching to solve the problem. (i'm looking at the wolrd as a whole)
The hypothesis that left-handed people are predisposed to visual-based thought has been validated by a variety of evidence. In the 2004 book Brains That Work a Little Bit Differently, researchers Allen D. Bragdon and David Gamon, Ph.D., briefly described some of the current research on handedness and its significance.
"Handedness researchers Coren and Clare Porac have shown that left-handed
university students are more likely to major in visually-based, as opposed to
language-based subjects. Another sample of 103 art students found an astounding
47 percent were left- or mixed-handed."
Ultimately, being left-handed is not an all-or-nothing situation. The processing styles operate on a continuum where some people are more visual-simultaneous and others are more linear-sequential.
Orang cakap, left-hander pandai melukis. Tapi aku tak pandai melukis pun. Setakat orang lidi tu boleh lah. Tapi aku suka melukis. Sebab aku akan mudah faham by illustration or pictures, not by words or explaination. Jadi, nota- nota aku akan penuh dengan lukisan daripada perkataan. Even perkataan itu aku akan translatekan ke dalam lukisan. Kalau kirimkan kad raya kepada Peanut pon, aku akan lukis macam2. kan Peanut??. Sebab bagi aku, it's the best way to express my feeling.
Left-hander ini sangatlah istimewa sampaikan ada Left-Hander's Day on August 13. Tapi aku tak sambut sebab aku tak pernah dan tak akan ambil peduli semua itu. Ada juga dulu sewaktu sekolah ada seorang kawan bagi sekeping kad 'Happy Left-Hander's Day'.(tak ingat pulak sapa yang bagi). Tapi aku betul2 tak mahu ambil peduli Hari Tangan Kiri. (sedikit ridiculous).
Apa-apa pun, aku tetap bersyukur dengan setiap pemberian Allah. Setiap kejadian ada hikmahNya. Tak kisah laa tangan kiri atau tangan kanan yg mendominasi, yg penting aku punyai 2 tangan yang normal yg membolehkan aku hidup dengan normal. Alhamdulillah.