Music & Surgery

A little melody with surgery
Music helps relax doctors and can be good for patients

By Peggy O'Farrell
Enquirer staff writer


WORDS AND MUSIC
"Every now and then someone will say, 'Anything but Buffett when they walk in my room. And I say, 'That's what we play on Tuesday,' which is not a day when I operate."Dr. Dan Reilly, hand and shoulder surgeon, Hand Surgery Specialists Inc., and Good Samaritan Hospital "I always ask teenagers or kids who are going to be awake if they want to bring in music. And if I'm not operating on their head or neck, they'll put on headphones and listen to music I probably wouldn't want to listen to."Dr. John Kitzmiller, plastic surgeon, University of Cincinnati, and a fan of jazz and classical music "My collection is very eclectic, but with a strong preference toward things you can sing along with, myself included. One of my nurses will say, 'Who sings this song?' And I'll say, 'Billy Joel,' and he'll say, 'Keep it that way.'"Dr. Charles Mehlman, pediatric orthopedic surgeon, Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center "When the (music) study was published, I got a lot of responses from younger surgeons who wanted to tell me their favorite songs. The funniest I remember is a song by Don McLean, 'Everybody Loves Me Baby, So What's the Matter With You?' "Dr. Karen Allen, psychologist and researcher, State University of New York-Buffalo "Anesthesiologists seem to like blues and jazz a little more. I think they're just a little bit mellower than the rest of us."Dr. Mark Thomas, transplant surgeon, the Health Alliance "Hopefully (Luther Vandross and Barry White) have helped other people get pregnant without our help, so we're trying to use them to our patients' advantage."Dr. Michael Thomas, fertility specialist, Reproductive Health Center
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Dr. Jennifer Butterfield can't cure "Boogie Fever." But the Kenwood plastic surgeon will operate to it.
While most patients are asleep and don't hear it, music is just as much a part of the operating room environment as beeping monitors and surgeons barking orders for instruments.
Surgeons say music - classical, country, rock, even disco - helps them concentrate. That's important for people who are working with scalpels, lasers and vital organs.
"There are a lot of OR sounds that have no meaning for the operating surgeon," says Butterfield, who's partial to old-school R&B. "It's almost like really loud white noise. Music takes away from the background noise that's too distracting."
Research shows patients benefit
There's plenty of research that says music is good for patients: It relieves stress, eases the perception of pain, even triggers memory in people with Alzheimer's.
Some studies show music is good for surgeons - ideally, that translates to music being just as good for the patient on the table, who, if anaesthetized, can't hear it.
Dr. Karen Allen, a psychologist at the State University of New York-Buffalo, asked surgeons to perform nonmedical tasks while listening to music and monitored their heart rate and blood pressure while they worked.
"When they chose the music, regardless of what kind of music it was, they performed better," Allen says. "When someone else picked the music, they did worse. It might have something to do with the personality of most surgeons. There's a big control factor there. And we were told by several surgeons that the OR is not a democracy."
When Dr. Dan Reilly operates, the other members of the surgical team get a vote on the day's musical selections.
"But it's like with my kids at home. Their vote doesn't count," he says.
In Reilly's operating room, you'll usually hear Jimmy Buffett in the background.
Reilly, a hand and shoulder surgeon with Hand Surgery Specialists Inc. and Good Samaritan Hospital, has about 8½ hours of Buffett - no songs repeated - on his iPod. He also likes classic rock.
"Despite what my nurses think, I do have a wide variety of music, but it's all from 20 years ago, 'cause that's when they quit making good music," he says.
It's all Sinatra, all the time, when Dr. Howard Melvin, an eye surgeon at Good Samaritan Hospital, is in the operating room.
"I need something relaxing. I do very intense surgery," he says.
Some days, Dr. Robert Bohinski wants to hear Mozart in the operating room. Other days, only Guns N' Roses will do.
"Sometimes it just depends on what team we have that day, whether it's an older team or a younger team," says Bohinski, a neurosurgeon at University Hospital. "Usually it's just a gut feeling."
When things aren't going well or the surgeon needs complete concentration, the music gets turned off.
"For the delicate parts of brain surgery when we're under the microscope, I don't listen to music. It's too distracting. When I'm resecting a deep brain tumor, I need to focus," Bohinski says.
Dr. Charles Mehlman, a pediatric orthopedic surgeon at Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center, chooses music according to the intensity of the procedure.
"When there's serious stuff, there's serious music," Mehlman says. "For the more routine stuff, it can be more fun music, like Dean Martin or Frank Sinatra."
Dr. Michael Thomas, a fertility specialist and director of the Center for Reproductive Health at St. Luke's West, listens to everything from Heart and James Taylor to Arrested Development and Maroon 5.
He likes driving rock beats, like Bruce Springsteen, for clearing fallopian tubes "so you can blast out all that endometriosis," he says.
And during infertility surgeries and embryo implantations, you'll hear Luther Vandross and Barry White crooning and breathing heavy.
"They've helped other people get pregnant without our help, so we're trying to use them to our patients' advantage during the procedures," he says.
There are two people in the operating room besides the surgeon who get input on music.
One is the patient. If they're going to be awake for the procedure, they can bring in their own music or choose from the surgeon's collection. They also can choose the music they'd like to hear while they're going to sleep.
The other is the anesthesiologist, who at least gets to order the music turned down or off while he or she listens for the patient's vital signs.
"It has to be soft enough they can hear the patient's heartbeat," Reilly says. "But they do have a stethoscope they can stick in their ear."
Dr. William Hurford, chairman of the department of anesthesiology at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine, compares OR music to background music in department stores.
"We can basically block it out and listen to the patient and the monitors," he says.
Hurford, incidentally, likes quiet jazz.
Mehlman lets his patients' parents choose the music that will be played during their children's surgeries.
Mehlman also lets teammates choose songs when it's time to close - the operation is done and it's time to stitch everything up.
"Closing music is where it's at," he says. "The intense, scary, dangerous part is over, and you're changing gears."
E-mail pofarrell@enquirer.com
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