Ambidexterity: A 'Handy' Advantage in Teaching Anatomy

Prof Arunachalam Kumar

Mangalore, Jan 5: One of nature's gifts I discovered in my early childhood itself was the ability to sketch or write alphabets with either hand (ambidexterity). The word "ambidextrous" is derived from the Latin roots ambi-, meaning "both", and dexter, meaning "right" or favorable. Thus, "ambidextrous" is literally "right / favorable on both sides". The term ambidexter in English was originally used in a legal sense of jurors who accepted bribes from both parties for their verdict.

I recollect my parents proudly asking me to draw something or other on the room floor using both hands, especially when guests were around. Of course, apart from curio value, this talent did not help me in any way academically, or otherwise.  As such, I did not give it any importance or value, till much later in life, when, by twist of circumstance I found myself teaching anatomy to medical students. My choice of teaching as a career calling suited me and my temperament to perfection: I love talking and what better than be actually be paid for yakking, ad infinitum.

It was during this phase of my life, when I rediscovered ambidexterity as a useful and very impressive additional teaching aid. The subject I handle, Anatomy, which I teach, is replete with figures, drawings and pictures. No anatomist can manage to keep any classroom of young students awake or attentive without extensive use of the blackboard – not to write, but to draw. Rendering simple diagrams in chalk and colour makes representations of the structure of the human form not just easier for the teacher but far easier to learner. Now what better than double the number of sketches and diagrams to help? That's where ambidexterity arrived with a bang. I started using the blackboard writing or drawing with both my hands. The spin off from the ambidextrous deluge was, not only did it help students comprehend the complexity of the anatomical sciences better, but also elevated me as some kind of ‘genius’ in the minds of the students, all of who are of impressionable age.

The ability to express oneself with either hand is not too common: In fact one in a hundred maybe able to in some form or other. Handedness is a natural trait, and preferential use of hand for eating socializing or writing is in part also dictated by cultural anthropological ethos and ethics. A majority of peoples across the world are predominantly right handed; cerebral dominance is stated to be one of the key factors that influence laterality and handedness. The two halves of the human brain have disparate functions, one half normally dominates the other. Yet both operate in tandem and in harmony to bring about a complex range of activity and action using memory, signal and neurons to coordinate motor activity. Pioneering work on ‘phantom’ limb is being done today by neurologists using the cerebral dominance as base.

Variants in types and range of ambidexterity are as wide. Some excel at ‘mirror writing’, ‘inverted writing’ and ‘reverse write’. Training and practice are known to be of help in developing expertise in ambidexterity. Whatever the root of the neurological conundrum, history is replete with ambidextrous characters - Leonardo da Vinci was probably the most famed and few know that our own; so was Hippocrates…and how many among us know that Mahatma Gandhi too was ambidextrous too.

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