Why to Hope Your Surgeon Is Grooving to the Bee Gees, Not House of Pain
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iStock/Thinkstock(NEW YORK) — Queen’s “Another One Bites the Dust” is maybe not the best song for your surgeon to play while he’s standing over you in the operating room, scalpel in hand, according to a tongue-in-cheek editorial in the British Medical Journal’s December issue.
“Stayin’ Alive” topped the list of the best songs for surgery compiled by surgeons at the University Hospital of Wales for the journal’s annual, lighthearted Christmas issue.
“Though a great suggestion for the patient, operating team members should resist the urge to emulate John Travolta’s expansive dance routine,” surgical registrar Dave Bosanquet and his co-author wrote of the song.
They added that if the patient goes into cardiac arrest on the table, the disco beat is actually the perfect rhythm for chest compressions.
The Bee Gees’ hit was followed by Sade’s “Smooth Operator” and Toni Braxton’s “Un-Break My Heart,” which was “ideal for cardiac surgery.”
Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” was recommended for patients to listen to while they await epidural anesthetics, but the authors warned to “avoid repeated exposure as lyrics may cause dangerous introspection.”
“You can have a lighthearted environment even in someplace as serious as a[n operating] theater,” Bosanquet said, adding that operating rooms inherit old CD players and speaker systems that doctors can use to connect their phones and play music.
About 80 percent of the people in operating rooms found that playing music during surgery helped reduce anxiety, improve efficiency and foster team communication, according to Bosanquet’s research. He noted that when patients were awake during procedures, studies have shown that hearing tunes actually has pain-relieving effects.
But not all songs belong in the OR. In addition to avoiding “Another One Bites the Dust,” the surgeons advised against REM’s “Everybody Hurts,” because “no patient appreciates receiving such a repetitive reminder.”
Radiohead’s “Knives Out” and the Red Hot Chili Peppers’ “Scar Tissue” were also no-nos.
“Knives Out” was “not only likely to increase patient anxiety, but will bring melancholy to the theatre,” they wrote. “Staff may question the meaninglessness of existence.”
Bosanquet and his team advised against anything by the hip-hop trio House of Pain, which is “likely to increase analgesic requirements.”
But House of Pain also had an upside, they wrote: “The single ‘Jump Around’ may shorten operative time considerably.”
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