based on hospital footage, said that it can hinder communication during operations, and could extend their overall length by more than a minute. Like many things, music in the operating room seems to be good in moderation—or at least, at a volume moderate enough to make sure everyone can be heard.
What might your surgeon be listening to while you’re on the table? The surgeons consulted for this article said the nature of the operation is a big factor in determining their playlists. Music is most crucial when patients have not been put to sleep. “More relaxing music for a local-anaesthetic vasectomy with an awake patient is useful to allow him to tolerate the procedure,” Mr Nair says. Though it is not painful, the sensation and experience of the operation can be quite alarming.
If patients are asleep, however, it is up the surgeons. Mr Nair says he often uses music in cases where he needs to stop the blood supply to the kidney for the safe excision of a tumour: this is a time-sensitive manoeuvre, and music can help to provide a tempo. Similarly, Alastair Fry, a consultant oral and maxillofacial surgeon at LBH, says he matches tracks to key phases of operations. “We like to have fairly chilled music when we’re carrying out our microsurgery,” he says.
Individual preferences obviously come into it—what the head surgeon or the team see as relaxing or uplifting. Many have go-to tunes. For Mr Fry, it’s Groove Armada’s “Chicago”, which he says “always helps get us in the zone”. Mr Ajuied says music in the theatres he has worked in has varied from opera to heavy metal. He personally likes an eclectic mix of 1980s power ballads, modern pop hits and the work of Stormzy, a grime artist.
Ranjit Deshpande, a consultant cardiothoracic surgeon at LBH, used to listen to Western classical music or rock, but his preferences have changed over time. “Recently my son suggested that during driving I should listen to Indian classical music or slow old Bollywood movie tracks, which I grew up with as a child,” he says. “I saw a remarkable change in myself, achieving calmness in traffic jams. I’ve applied the same principles to surgeries—and it works.” That will be music to patients’ ears.
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