Do you ever have trouble telling right from left ? For example you 're taking a driving lesson and the instructor asks you to take a left turn and you pause , struggling to think of which way is left . If so , you 're not on your own – a significant proportion of our population has difficulty in telling right from left . Many people , even adults , say that they confuse right and left . Dr Gerard Gormley , of Queen 's University Belfast , says almost a fifth of college professors and more than a quarter of college students have difficulty quickly identifying right from left . For example , 19.5 per cent of college professors and 26.2 per cent of college students said that they occasionally , frequently or all of the time had difficulty when they had to quickly identify right from left . Discriminating between left and right is a complex neuro-psychological process involving several higher brain functions . These include the ability to integrate touch , sound and sight information , language function and memory . For some it is second nature but for others a considerable challenge . One further problem facing the health profession is that when a doctor or nurse faces a patient , their right-side is on the patient 's left-side . So correctly distinguishing right from left in a patient also involves mentally rotating images . Wrong turns to avoidable errors . It 's hardly the end of the world if you take the wrong direction on a journey , but there are many situations where confusing right from left can have devastating consequences . Some of the most tragic errors in medicine have been when surgery was performed on the wrong side of a patient : removing the wrong kidney or amputating the wrong leg . While there are systems , checks and balances in place to anticipate and minimise these kinds of mistakes , when they do occur , human error is often at the root of the cause . It 's not the end of the world if a person takes the wrong direction on a journey , but doctors confusing right from left have taken out the wrong kidney in the past . Do n't ever confuse sides . Error is an inherent characteristic of human behaviour – sometimes we just get things wrong – but left-right ones may be more than a one-off accident . Evidence would suggest that right-left confusion is more common in women . The literature would appear to suggest that men demonstrate a greater degree of visuo-spatial function , the ability to visualise objects and spaces , which allows people to do things such as navigate around a city . The 'distraction effect ' Distinguishing right from left also never occurs in isolation . Hospitals and other health settings are busy and complex places to work in . Doctors are often subject to distractions while working ; receiving telephone calls , cardiac monitors bleeping , taking questions from colleagues , patients and their relatives – the clinical environment can be very challenging . In research we published in Medical Education , we explored the impact of such interruptions on medical students ' ability to correctly discriminate right from left . While objectively measuring 234 medical students ' ability to distinguish right from left , we subjected them to the typical ambient noise of a ward environment and interrupted them with clinical questions . Previous research found when medical students were distracted by the noise of a ward and clinical questions , their ability to make right-left judgments was thrown off . Our findings were startling . Even the background noise of a ward environment was enough to throw some medical students off when making right-left judgements . Asking them a series of questions while they were trying to distinguish right from left had an even greater impact . The 'distraction effect ' was greater for older and female students . An individual 's ability to self-determine how well they could distinguish right from left was also often imprecise . So many students thought they were good at distinguishing right from left when , objectively measured , they were n't . Dr Gormley says tests should be carried out so people affected are aware of the problem . Coping techniques . Those who have difficulty in telling right from left often develop their own techniques – for example placing their left thumb at right angles to their index finger to make an ' L ' representation for their 'left ' side . It appears however that these techniques remain fallible and fail to combat this issue in all cases . In healthcare , training – starting at an undergraduate level – needs to make students mindful of the challenges of making right-left decisions and the impact that distractions can have on such critical decisions . We need to develop strategies to reduce such error-provoking situations and to raise student and teacher awareness of the fact that some individuals are more prone to right-left confusion . As the people at risk often do n't think they have a problem , testing of the ability to discriminate against right-left discrimination – for example through online psychometric tests – could be offered to students to measure their ability . Those who are revealed to be challenged in making right-left decisions , would at least have this deficiency flagged up and could apply extra vigilance in certain situations . Minimising distractions is also particularly important . During the critical phases of a flight , pilots must refrain from all non-essential conversation to avoid unnecessary distractions . Such cockpit rules , and other strategies lend themselves well to healthcare .
Gerard Gormley is Academic General Practitioner at Queen 's University . Says many people have difficulty quickly identifying left and right . Women tend to struggle more than men , he claims in his opinion piece . It is a complex process which involves several higher brain functions . Is dangerous if doctors or health professionals confuse left and right . Comment: