Mindfulness For Doctors
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The Bee Gees effect: Music in operating rooms helps surgery go smoother, study suggests
Thinkstock/Getty Images"Hey have you heard the new Spoon album? No? I can go throw it on ... this guy seems to be in a bit of pain. Maybe it'll help." A new study suggests the music played in the OR may even help with pain control and patient communication.
The prize for the year’s most thought-provoking article in a learned journal must go to an editorial published last week in the British Medical Journal. It reviewed research on the music played in operating theatres, and made for fascinating reading. It appears that music is not just entertainment for doctors, nurses and theatre staff, it can have positive benefits for patients, too.
There is good evidence that it helps patients treated under both local and general anesthetic. Incredibly, one study has shown that playing music that has a rhythm that mimics the heart beat is as effective as midazolam, a relaxant given to patients undergoing a variety of procedures such as colonoscopy. Research also showed that music can help reduce post-operative pain to the extent that patients need less analgesia; and staff report that it helps improve their communication, reduces anxiety and increases efficiency.
The operating theatre is a strange place, tightly governed by procedures, protocol and the rigid hierarchy that ensures things run smoothly. Everyone knows their place and their job and woe betide anyone who doesn’t. It can be an intimidating arena — but rightly so, because what happens there really is a matter of life and death.
It seems astonishing that playing music has an impact on the outcome of an operation, but researchers have looked at similar variables before, particularly in infection control.
When I was a junior doctor and worked in surgery, the consultant loved to tell us about a group of Swedish researchers who decided to look at infection rates in surgical patients.
The story goes that, in true Scandinavian style, they decided to see if operating while naked reduced the risk of wound infection. The rationale was that friction from the surgical scrubs caused skin to be constantly shed during the operation — and with it any bacteria on the skin surface. At this point the consultant would guffaw, and tell us that indeed the study had showed that the risk of infection was less in those patients who’d been operated on by naked teams. Thankfully the idea never caught on, and if you’d seen some of the surgeons I’ve worked for you’d understand my relief.
I was never sure if this story was apocryphal, but needless to say it was usually told to attractive, female medical students — perhaps the surgeon fantasized about them turning up in the buff.
Amid all the rules and regulations though, the one thing that there is choice over is the type of music played, and tradition dictates that the most senior surgeon gets to choose the tracks. Although, according to the review, this tends to be classical music, it opens up the possibility of a number of appropriate songs that could be played. The article makes a few suggestions — ‘Stayin’ Alive’ by the Bee Gees is one I hope surgeons take particular note of!
Cat Stevens’s ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ is, of course, very apposite. My mum is about to have her cataracts removed, so should, I think, ask her surgeon to play ‘I Can See Clearly Now’ by Johnny Nash. But some should perhaps be avoided, for the sake of the patient. When undergoing a colonoscopy, I’d rather have that midazolam than listen to ‘Ring of Fire’ by Johnny Cash. Equally, I doubt there are many men who’d like to drift off before their urological examination to Chuck Berry singing ‘My Ding-a-Ling’. I have every confidence that readers will be able to think of many more.
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