Poem on a Post-It [9]: Tools

This week I’m spending some time trying to bring together some of my ideas for what I might have to offer to the world. I’ve been reflecting deeply about what feels important, and I remembered this poem. Originally drafted as part of

Beth Kempton

’s tiny winter poems series, as I begin to develop my writing through her fantastic Ink and Flame course, I realised that a lot of my writing so far has been focussed on fairness and women’s place in surgery and society as a whole. Having seen the immense value of the diversity of thought that is inevitable when teams genuinely reflect the society they serve, this is not just about gender and feminism, it’s about amplifying underrepresented voices, then actually listening to what they have to say. I have a lot of work to do, we all do, but one step at a time, we must do that work.

For today’s prompt, I invite you to consider what is the one key message your pen would be compelled to tell, if you were asked to write a sentence on a post-it-note about the issue that feels most important in this moment, to you?

Don’t overthink this. It doesn’t have to be achievable today (or even in a lifetime). It can be a big issue affecting national or global society, or something much closer to home, it’s just to get the pen flowing.

If you feel able to share, please feel welcome to do so in the comments.

I hope that my voice will come back soon so that I’ll be able to share a recording of these poems, but for now, below is Tools in text only form. I’ve also shared a link¹ to the second research paper referenced. The first was a presentation given at the British Association of Paediatric Endoscopic Surgeons in Bern, Switzerland in 2010 and is not currently accessible online.

Louise x

Text-only version:

TOOLS

I once wrote a paper

Published in some medical journal

I called it

‘A bad surgeon blames his tools’

(The pronoun deliberate)

It was about equipment failure

Happened all the time

Blunt scissors

Needle holders bent

Forceps sticking

And on it went

They weren’t all bad

(The instruments, or men)

Frustrating though,

When we were handed them again

Years later wrote another

About how instruments are sexist

Not built for smaller hands

But then, what is?

When even kitchen counters

Are designed for 5’10

Or more

My tools are different now

A blank page and a pen

More powerful, they are, by far

Because it’s not about the tools

It’s how we use them

And oh,

The tales my pen could tell…

1. One size does not fit all: Impact of hand size on ease of use of instruments for minimally invasive surgery