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> At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical school is that left/right always refer to the patient's perspe
by hanoz 3y ago
> At the other extreme you have the medical profession where the first thing you learn in medical school is that left/right always refer to the patient's perspective.
Didn't know that! So how pervasive is this principal? Would it apply to a descriptive reference to a diagram in a book for example?
- antognini 3y agoYes. As a random example, you'll see that although the lungs are seen from the perspective of a doctor facing a patient, they are labelled left/right from the patient's perspective: https://www.therespiratorysystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/Lungs.jpg https://www.therespiratorysystem.com/wp-content/uploads/2017...
- zarzavat 3y agoThe reason is that when a patient comes to a doctor they will say they have a pain in their left side, without further qualification. So it makes sense to center the entire terminology around that situation. Otherwise doctors would constantly be having to do error-prone conversions.
- beefield 3y agoI think the principle is pretty pervasive also outside medicals. I do not recall anyone ever refer to my left hand as right hand (other than maybe by mistake), regardless how they are oriented around me.
- kgwgk 3y agoAfter all, doctors are humans and also have a body. It would be strange for them to write books saying that the heart is [#] on the right side when they have it on their left, etc. [%] usually, because this is HN