I'm at a US MD school and we have plenty of time to do needlecraft and the like. Most of us aren't Albet Einstein, at least I know I'm not. My favorite thing to do is volunteer for Habitat for Humanity (we do roofing, wood work, dry wall, etc), and I have plenty of classmates that are involved in the arts. Not trying to discredit how hard we've all worked to have the opportunity to be in a US MD school. Tens of thousands of people would give up everything to have our spots.

In relation to the article, we have plenty of opportunities to do suture clinics as a second year and even practice with box trainers. Perhaps training is different outside the United States.