preponderance of left-handed med students?

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jmejia1

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thought it was a little wierd that I've noticed at least one left-handed applicant at my interviews (and this is in small groups of no more tha seven)i'm pretty observant so when the interviewees take down notes or whatever, I spot the left-handed ones. Also, one of my student interviewers was left-handed and I made some dumb pass at how left-handed docs/med students were under-represented. he answered that there were quite a few in his class.

anyone notice a correlation. r left handed people more apt toward the sciences?
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Well studies have shown that left handers tend to be more intelligent than right handers. They tend to be more analytical and creative. That would explain a larger percentage that you are seeing in med school. FYI I am a right hander.
 
I don't know about that, but all the people that I know who are left-handed have great aptitudes. Is this a general trend, or is it just the people I know...??? :confused:
 
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nray,

You must have posted as I was typing...now, I feel foolish. <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
 
I've heard left-handers are either 1) extremely intelligent or 2) had difficulty at birth.
 
I didn't have any difficulty at birth, but if you wanna generalize that I am extremely intelligent, I am down with that :wink: Chalk up one additional left handed med student!

Actually, its kind of ittitating to be a leftie. Two different profs have spotted my south-paw style and said something to the effect of "it all makes sense now" whatever that is supposed to mean :confused:
 
it means they thought you were really smart but weren't sure until they saw you were lefthanded. :p

PS. jessica is a prime example of what we're talking about here. BUT, just out of curiosity..i'd like to know if many students at the average IVY are lefthanded (many meaning more than the percentage of the population that is lefthanded would suggest).
 
Uh-oh. There goes the trend of lefty=ivy! no Ivy for me, I am with the rest of my less financially endowed lefties at a state school (faulty data point, throw me out!) :p But those stats would be interesting to know....
 
11% of Americans and Europeans are left-handed.

Estimates of the prevalence of left-handedness depend on sex, age, and the cultural/genetic background of the group of interest (see the groups section for details on which groups show greater left-handedness than others). Here are some general trends, taken from a study by Gilbert and Wysocki (1992) that surveyed 1,177,507 people:

Men are more likely (12.6%) to be left-handed than women (9.9%)

Young people (i.e. 10-20 years old) are more likely to be left-handed (14% for men, 12% for women) than are the elderly (near 6% for both sexes)

People of Asian (9.3%) or Hispanic (9.1%) lineage are slightly less likely to be left-handed than whites, blacks, or North American Indians.

OH, and you should read some of the theories that are out there regarding left-handedness. It's very interesting reading. I'd post the entire text, but it's long...

<a href="http://duke.usask.ca/~elias/left/" target="_blank">Theories Regarding Left-Handedness</a>
 
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did a search on pubmed. seems like there's no clear answer.

---

Percept Mot Skills 1989 Jun;68(3 Pt 1):839-46 Related Articles, Books, LinkOut

Mixed-handedness and achievement test scores of grade school children.

Sarma PS.

Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Health Sciences, Chicago Medical School, North Chicago, Illinois 60064.

Normal Curve Equivalent Scores on subtests of the California Achievement Test for mixed-handed children, 52 boys and 58 girls from Grades 3 and 4, who are right- and left-handed writers, indicate no differences by handedness in girls, but among the mixed-handed fourth grade boys, those who wrote right-handed scored lower on Study Skills than the boys who wrote left-handed.

PMID: 2748300 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Handedness and spatial ability.

Sanders B, Wilson JR, Vandenberg SG.

Data from a large-scale study of cognitive abilities were used to test the hypothesis that there are handedness-related differences in spatial visualization. The spatial factor score of the cognitive test battery provided a measure of spatial visualization. Analyses revealed a sex X handedness X ethnicity interaction on the spatial factor, and no significant handedness-related differences on verbal factor. In all ethnic groups [B} strongly left-handed males had higher spatial scores than strongly right-handed males, whereas strongly left-handed females had lower spatial scores than strongly right-handed females.{/B] Among subjects of Japanese or Chinese ancestry, strongly left-handed subjects differed from ambidextrous subjects as well as from right-handed subjects, and these differences, too, were of opposite sign for males and females. It is suggested that the use of spatial ability measures which are relatively insensitive to differences in right hemisphere ability, as well as the failure to attend to degree of handedness, ethnicity, and particularly gender, may be responsible for the negative findings in this area of research.

PMID: 7187636 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

Handedness and intelligence.

Hicks RA, Beveridge R.

The scores of 37 right and 30 left-handed subjects on tests of fluid and crystallized intelligence were compared. [B}Consistent with the hypothesis, it was found that the left-handers were inferior to the right-handers on the Gf task. {/B] These data are consistent with those from three earlier studies and serve to question the assertion that there are no handedness related differences in ability.

PMID: 679711 [PubMed - indexed for MEDLINE]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
 
I'M Left-handed, and proud to be one of the few :D :D :p :clap: !!!!
HEH...
 
jessica, you didn't go undergrad IVY but you're for DAMN STEERAIT SURE going to an IVY for medschool. so it wasn't a faulty data point in your case, you smarty pants. :p
 
it would be nice to see the MCAT scores broken down my handedness.
 
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Both of my parents are ambidextrous (sp?). It's very strange...they write, cut food, etc. with whatever hand they feel like. My sister, brother and myself are right-handed, and my other brother is a leftie....but he's not really that smart.

I accidentally sat at a left-handed desk last week and it sucked! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />
 
Everyone is actually born right-handed, but only some of us are able to overcome it <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
 
i'm left handed and quiete smart. both my parents and a sister are right handed and i'd say my dad is the smartest! but i'm also more athletic.
 
I'm left handed and I've done really well (or gotten the really easy version) of every standardized test I've taken: SAT, ACT, Achievements, MCAT, LSAT, and GRE.

But that's about it. I'm certainly not brilliant, pretty much about average here in terms of grades. And I'm not happy about that statistic that says that although 10% of the population are left handers at age 20, that drops to 1% by 70. Why do all of us die early?
 
i'm not afraid of things.
also i think an unproportionately large % of high altitude mountain climbers are left handed. we do have bigger balls.
 
I was told that lefties are more prone to accidents, which might be why we (I'm a leftie too :clap: ) die at an early age.
 
I am also proud to be a URLH (under represented left hander)!!!

Cons:
Left handers have a much higher rate of drug abuse, alcoholism, and suicide? :confused:
Although left handers only make up 10% of the population, they make up over half of the remedial reading classes in the nation. :rolleyes:
Left handers tend to have horrible hand writing. :(

Pros:
Left handers tend to be more intelligent overall
Left handers make up most of the presidents in the last 30 years (ford, reagan, bush, clinton, and VP rockefeller).
Lefts handers make better ball blayers and tennis players.
Left handers make better actors and artists. :clap: :D
 
when i was at oxford, i noticed that quite a few students and tutors were left-handed. more so than here in the U.S.
my theory is that it has both to do with cultural acceptance and also intelligence.
 
Wow, people are saying *positive* things about left-handers??? I'm a lefty (both parents are right-handed), and usually all I hear are bad left-hander jokes! This is great!! :D

Oh, and I SUCK at standardized tests. (well, ok, I don't suck *all* that much, but let's just say that my scores were well below the average scores at my undergrad school. And my MCAT...heh, let's not even go there <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> )
 
Left-handies rock! No one in my family is left-handed except for me. I don't know if the intelligent thing runs true, but I do think most of us learn to adapt better, given that the world is designed right-handed. As for the difficulty at birth theory...I was a month late being born...something that would never be allowed these days...I looked like a sumo wrestler until I was a few months old and my height caught up with my wt.
 
although correlation does not mean causation, it has been found that left handers (in terms of percentages) have a greater likelihood of suffering from mental illness. perhaps that is the creative genius gone a stray.

just food for thought...but dont think too much...you might go insane
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by mcwmark:
•I'm not happy about that statistic that says that although 10% of the population are left handers at age 20, that drops to 1% by 70. Why do all of us die early?•••••I'm a lefty, as was my grandfather. However, he was encouraged ("forced", in his words) to write right handed when he was in school. I think the numbers you site are misleading because lefties were 'encouraged' to become right handed back in the day. Therefore, many of the 99% of right handed persons may have been originally lefties.

Ian
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Nikki:
•I was told that lefties are more prone to accidents, which might be why we (I'm a leftie too :clap: ) die at an early age.•••••My biased, as a left hander, hypothesis is that we are more prone to accidents because we have to use things designed for use by right handers (those dirty so-and-sos :wink: )
 
Oops: lefty, undgerad ivy, and extremely accident-prone <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" />

I hate being a cliche... :p
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by racerx:
•I'm a lefty, as was my grandfather. However, he was encouraged ("forced", in his words) to write right handed when he was in school. I think the numbers you site are misleading because lefties were 'encouraged' to become right handed back in the day. Therefore, many of the 99% of right handed persons may have been originally lefties.

Ian•••••That's strange, the same thing happened to my grandpa.
 
•••quote:••• Originally posted by mcwmark:

I'm left handed and I've done really well (or gotten the really easy version) of every standardized test I've taken: SAT, ACT, Achievements, MCAT, LSAT, and GRE.
••••dude, why are you taking so many tests? do you have some sort of masochistic urge to take the LSAT, GRE and MCAT?? Or are you applying to the popular combined MD/PhD/JD program? :)
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by pj02007:
•i'm left handed and quiete smart. •
••••Read this again. :wink:
 
Well I don't know where I stand but I can do a couple of things :wink: with both my left and right hands.....I can write with both of them also. :D
My sister was a lefty. Where I come from doing anything with your left hand is associated with "evil"...so everytime she wrote with her left hand (when she was younger)she got punished, she finally got smart and started writing with her right hand.
 
I got the best of both worlds.

I am left-footed and right-handed. :)

I always played left halfback/forward. It was nice to always know I could play the whole game cuz no one else could defend the left corner as I could :)
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Papa Smurf:
• •••quote:•••Originally posted by pj02007:
•i'm left handed and quiete smart. •
••••Read this again. :wink: •••••HAHAHAHHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAH

<img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Laughy]" title="" src="graemlins/laughy.gif" />
 
my parents are both right handed...they had six kids, 3 boys...three girls...three lefthanded kids...weird.....there is a guy (forget name/institution)article was in the NY Times about a year ago...he's doing a big study re:left handedness...he was looking for participants, families with more than one left handed offspring....the article mentioned earlier death, suicide, accidents, also higher intelligence, creativity...I've been a nurse for a while....over the years I've noticed a much larger percent of the docs are lefty rather than right handed....a friend of mine who went to Wash U said that most of her class was left handed (so is she)
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by Mellow:
•My sister was a lefty. Where I come from doing anything with your left hand is associated with "evil"...so everytime she wrote with her left hand (when she was younger)she got punished, she finally got smart and started writing with her right hand.•••••That's where the word sinister came to mean evil. Latin for left is...damn, took latin 15 years ago...sinis &lt;?&gt;. Also, the medical term for left sided locations...yep, sinister.

There are alot of us sinister characters out there looking to become Doctors. :wink:
 
•••quote:•••Originally posted by johnM:
• •••quote:••• Originally posted by mcwmark:

I'm left handed and I've done really well (or gotten the really easy version) of every standardized test I've taken: SAT, ACT, Achievements, MCAT, LSAT, and GRE.
••••dude, why are you taking so many tests? do you have some sort of masochistic urge to take the LSAT, GRE and MCAT?? Or are you applying to the popular combined MD/PhD/JD program? :) •••••Oops, I didn't take the GRE, I took the GMAT.

Well, I was a three time med applicant (was in corporate finance after school for two years) so I decided I was going back to school--no matter what. So I took the LSAT and GMAT for "fun" and applied. Luckily I got into med school my third time around.
 
Perhaps this explains why a lot of doctor's handwriting is so bad! I'm left-handed and my handwriting is atrocious (sp?), when you're a lefty, you have to develop a weird writing style to ensure that your hand doesn't smudge over the stuff that you just wrote; hence a less than legible writing often results. I too have done well in school and on standardized tests, but I would like to think that it is because I work hard and study a lot, and not because of some invisible power I was granted by the hand I write with
 
Here is an example of left handed creativity:
My buddy who is left handed told me one time that he likes to sit on his hand for about a half hour or so until it falls asleep and he cannot feel it. Then he masturbates and it feels like someone else is giving him a hand job.
:D <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Wowie]" title="" src="graemlins/wowie.gif" /> <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="eek.gif" /> :D
Only the best of minds at work could come up with that!!!
 
Here's how I deal with the handwriting problem: Tilt the sheet of paper so that the top of the sheet is rotated to the right somewhat, the bottom of the sheet to the left. You'll look like you're writing sideways, but you're hand will be in a more natural position for writing, and you're handwriting will improve immediately and immensly. At least that was my experience. I've even learned caligraphy.

Nanon
 
Wow! So that explains it. My ex was left handed, F'ing smart, very analytical, and quite accident-prone. I even used to be sacred that she'll fall down the stairs or something and die; or mistakingly stab herself to de@th while cooking or something. I guess that's in line with the early de@th by accident part. Hmmm... Interesting!
 
Dr. Dad
humor is both and appreciated and needed on this site...however, pardon my opinion here, your input sounds like high school to me
 
Hey, thanks for the topic! Being lefty, this has given me a boost in my chances for med school acceptance. :D

I wonder why they post stats for women acceptances, and minority acceptances, even out-of-state acceptances, but none for left-handedness.....

I can't speak for my level of intelligence, but I know I'm quick in adapting to new situations/environments, and I always figured it's b/c I've always had to adapt to a right-handed world. I end up using a right-handed mouse on the computer just because they were always made that way by default.

Re genetics - my dad's left-handed. My older sister claims she started out left-handed, but my mom, who grew up in SE Asia, forced her into using her right hand. How I got off so "lucky" I dunno.

As for clumsiness.... well, dunno about that either, but I often get my right and left directions mixed up. Like if someone says, "Turn right" I'll go left, or I have to pause and think about it before I know which way to go. Boy, that wouldn't bode well in surgery, would it? "What are you talking about? I did amputate his left foot! Oh, you mean I didn't? Oops..." :p
 
lefty here to. accident prone and a slight case of alzheimers. dr.dad that post was hilarious.
 
Rockaway, I am sorry that my comment seemed "high schoolish" to you because I tried so hard to make my masturbation joke seem as professional as possible especially for a premed student such as yourself who should not have to put up with such behavior. :rolleyes:
<img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" /> <img border="0" alt="[Pity]" title="" src="graemlins/pity.gif" />
grow up and get over yourself.
 
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