Magical Musical Moments in the OR

If you've ever stopped your car at a traffic light next to a souped-up, muffler-free, teenager's open-window excuse for an automobile, emitting enormously high decibel vibrations of unintelligible sound waves, you may well have mused in dismay, "what monstrosity hath technology created?" Today's music, in it's immensely varied forms, is all pervasive, much like the early and now current movies, which seem unable to create a scene without it in the background, often drowning out the dialogue. However, teenagers grow into more considerate adults who understand that they must not impose their musical preferences upon the tender ears of those in the immediate vicinity . . .or do they? Well if some fail to observe this form of common decency, certainly respected professionals, especially surgeons, are well aware of this necessity and would assuredly refrain from the practice . . . or would they? According to an article in the November 12, 2001 issue of the AMNews by Daman Adams, certain top-notch surgeons are finding that music in the operating room helps them to perform at peak efficiency. Although Adams failed to point it out, I did notice that all of these music "aficionados" range in age from 35 to 52, in other words, young enough to belong to the "must be continually surrounded by music culture."

The reasons for the need for a "Surgical soundtrack: Tunes to Operate By", as the article by Adams was so aptly titled, as well as the type of music, were far from uniform in spite of the limited age span. Keith Horvath prefers the blues, which he grew up with. George Jallo insists that pop and rock relax and calm him down. Mauricio Heilbron, a former disc jockey, and David Langer like the Bruce Springsteen type recordings. However, 52 year-old George Todd, the oldest of the lot, goes for the classics: Vladimir Horowitz in particular. Apparently, the younger surgeons prefer pop, while the relatively older ones go for classical pieces, as might be expected, outside the operating room as well. Barry Friedberg, an anesthesiologist, claims that elevator music seems to be taboo. It's too "insipid." Some doctors even go so far as to bring along their own boom boxes, or better yet, provide fancy setups for really hi fidelity output, and believe it or not, some patients actually bring along their own music.

Before you criticize this obviously contentious trend, let me point out that a study published back in September of 1954 in what was then still known as the Journal of the American Medical Association (now called JAMA), found that surgeons actually appeared to perform better on stressful non-surgical tasks when they listened to their choice of music, providing better speed and accuracy than when there was no music. No mention was made as to whether this also applies to stressful surgical tasks, in spite of the fact that many of these musically oriented surgeons prefer silence when the surgery becomes more intricate and intense.

So the next time a car and its occupant goes by, bouncing to a rhythmically blasting senseless beat, which causes your blood to boil, creating a desire to squelch the young "idiot", remember, you might just find yourself at the other end of that "idiot's" scalpel some day.

Gently he placed two nerve ends together, With delicate precision creating a union, Soothing sounds of Yanni guided his hands, Calmly orchestrating a masterful fusion. With a sigh of relief he closed up the wound, Deftly weaving the sutures with fingers of gold, Then the patient awakened to The Grateful Dead, And his heart gave out, and his blood turned cold.