ABSTRACT
With embodied language as the medium, this chapter sets up a thought experiment: ‘can poetry be used as a tool to enhance fine motor surgical skills?’ While studies have shown that poetry can be used to help medical trainees improve in areas of communication and empathy, can poetry also be used to help build procedural competence? When adult participants improve their fine motor skills, their understanding of complex syntax also improves. Could studying poetry then help surgical trainees improve or maintain their fine motor surgical skills, especially where the complexity of surgical procedures has increased with the advent of laparoscopic technology, requiring a continued need to ensure that surgical residents and staff alike continually practice and hone their skills? Engaging in certain non-procedural activities has been shown to help surgeons improve or maintain their skills, embracing the use of cognitive training/visualization, including video games. Language training, including the study of poetry, is another technique deserving of consideration. There is then a theoretical basis for using poetry as a tool for maintaining and enhancing fine motor skills for surgeons.
