Music of the Gods

This article is so dense with intriguing stuff that I hardly know where to start. Let's begin by ignoring the guy's extraordinary brilliance, with PhDs in stem cell biology and in music, before getting his MD. Ignore it, because it puts him so much in a class by himself that it must make the rest of us feel like tiny-brained sub-species. If he's superhuman, we'd be kidding ourselves to apply it to ourselves. So let's just consider the mind-music-medicine-surgery implications, starting with this:

“If I don’t play [the piano, if you didn't bother to read the article!] for a couple of days ... I cannot feel things as well in surgery. My hands are not as tender with the tissue. They are not as sensitive to the feedback that the tissue gives you.”

Fascinating. Is that an effect that translates to the rest of us? Or is it related to his special brain-wiring for music? If the latter, does music raise him above the level of other surgeons, or is it that it's necessary to keep him from falling below ours? Is it, in other words, a gift or a handicap? In my book, and here, as well as other places in this blog, I've likened surgery to music, and to ballet. At its best, it's apt: when the process of operating comes together in all its parts, with surgeon, assistant, scrub nurse, anesthesia in a kind of flow of understanding and anticipation, the result is symphonic and thrilling. Allowed to do so, freed from distractions and stops and starts arising from unfamiliar team-members, I can get into a rhythm of operating that seems to play like music, both carried along by it, and carrying it along. Does Dr. Conrad exemplify the phenomenon at its highest? Do musicians make better surgeons, do surgeons make better musicians? Without doubt (to my observation, anyway) there are some surgeons much more gifted in the art, in the technical process of surgery, in anticipating how a given situation will unfold. Do we have "musical wiring" (by which I mean something in common with musicians, as opposed to being necessarily gifted in music)? (And, yeah, I said "we," and I know it's braggadocio.)

The article also addresses the physiological responses to music, both in terms of its potential soothing and healing effects, as well as an implication that it might raise the performance of surgeons in the OR. I've written about music in the OR: contrary to the belief on which I was raised that it's a distraction, it's generally been found to be of psychological benefit, and I like it, mostly (sometimes, when fans became fecal, I'd ask that it be turned off while I concentrated intently). That some music might raise levels of growth hormone is quite amazing. The possible specificity of Mozart, even more so! Dr. Conrad's point about Mozart intentionally or subconsciously writing to ease his own maladies is provocative. I love the idea that he's trying to flesh it out: music vs no music; types of music compared to each other. (Maybe athletes can get their growth hormone through headphones. Headline: "Baseball Bans Beethoven!")

To me, music is among the highest of human endeavors: that we can create it, that it moves us. (My theory: there's a survival advantage from being able to distinguish among and to reproduce sounds of other animals.) Those that are truly gifted with it are sublimely lucky. For some, like my aunt, it's part of their metabolism. For the rest of us, most of us, there are pleasures to receive from those so gifted. And now, it seems, the benefit may be beyond the merely esoteric.

Silence is Bronze

My chief of surgery during training, Dr Dunphy, had a few rules for the OR. Worried about little hairs falling in the wound, he told us never to get a haircut the day before doing surgery. 'Course, he'd never be caught dead wearing a nurse's bouffant net hat, which is what I wear nowadays, which is why I don't think it's a problem. Perhaps he only showered on Saturdays, being old school, but I doubt it. Anyway, it's a rule that I've not seen followed currently. (Parenthetically [which is why it's in parentheses], I've cut my own hair since I was in college, saving enough money to buy a car, I'm thinking. Maybe working in a mirror for all those years is why I caught on to laparoscopy so easily: depending on where the camera is, your moves look backwards.)

Likewise the silence thing. Dunphy eschewed any extraneous talk in the OR. The reason -- a good one, really -- was the unnecessary spewing of talk-droplets. Problem is, he broke the rule all the time. A garrulous Irishman who liked little better than telling a good joke, he couldn't resist it anywhere, anytime, followed invariably by the hearty laughing at his own proffering. No sycophants, we; our chiming in with laughter was genuine. He was a natural story-teller, and knew a good joke when he heard one. (As opposed to..... oh heck, I promised myself to stay away from politics for now.) And of course there were times in the teaching institution when lots of necessary operative talk ensued: explaining a difficult procedure, demonstrating or correcting technique. It could be quite extensive; and I was never convinced that saying words such as "retropertioneum" or "white line of Toldt" or "Jesus Christ, man, what are you doing!! Stop!! Let ME do it" conveyed fewer bugs than "what did you do this weekend" or "you can handle my instrument any time you want." (This would seem a good time to mention that loose talk in the OR is often loose, indeed; thick skin, sense of humor, and disinclination to see sexual harassment in the telling of lewd jokes are all useful traits for surgery personnel.)

Dr Dunphy also thought music in the OR was a distraction, and unprofessional. Given that the breaking of that rule required active and directed effort and, in the days before iPods, the lugging around of equipment, it didn't happen. Since professors' preferences (to describe them softly) were generally inculcated with (quoting my book, now) a blowtorch, or in ways that could induce self-soilage, there were many beliefs and behaviors that I took away from training that were hard to revise, even when there was ample evidence that they could or should be tossed out. I'll save the more interesting and amazing examples for another post: today we're just talking about the sounds of surgery. OK, I'm gonna go on a slight tangent here, at the risk of negating the kind words #1 dino said about me: I do have a favorite OR sound, and it has nothing to do with the thrust of this post. It comes from an ingenious device called an LDS stapler (no relation). When you pull the trigger on the device, which is gas-powered, it makes a k'chzzz sound that is deeply satisfying. (On the other side of the surgical sound spectrum is the descending tone of the oxygen monitor, as a patient's O2 level drops. Bad sound.)

Back on point: for a while after I entered the private practice of the surgical science, my operations were conducted in relative silence. I'm not sure what changed. For one thing, my partner -- with whom I operated nearly always -- talked up a storm and it didn't seem to cause infections. In training, where there were usually at least two more people scrubbed in than needed (some of whom -- no offense to my med student readers, whom I revere and admire and of whose enthusiasm I'm envious and nostalgic -- probably contaminated themselves five times in the process), and operations took twice as long as they do in real life (now I'm REALLY losing the dino), wound infections were as commonplace as moss in the Pacific Northwest. In practice, they are astoundingly rare. So what the heck: yak away. And I've come really to like music in the OR as well. In fact, studies have been done that have confirmed benefit in terms of reducing tension.

Used to be that the anesthesiologist was the designated disc jockey. They can put away the journals or business magazines they read long enough to spin some tunes, and they do. Some bring their own music, playing in the way of their choosing come hell or high water (sometimes water of the red kind.) Others are willing simply to be the mechanic, playing what's requested. Some surgeons insist on their own genre, giving no thought to the idea that others may not like it. Others -- and I put myself in this camp -- are pretty omnivorous musically and are happy to let others choose. I'd often ask patients if there was a type of music they'd like to have played: while awake, the reasons are obvious. And I'm not beyond thinking that at a subconscious level it might have benefits while asleep. If I may humbly say it, my iPod playlists have become objects of desire of many of the nurses (the only part of my gestalt of which such a thing can be said), and when for whatever reason I haven't brought it, disappointment prevails. I tend to favor a mix of new and old rock 'n roll, or blues, or jazz. Jazz, it turns out, is less generally favored, in my experience, so I'm selective. Can't explain it; but I go with it. Many ORs now have computers online, so streaming audio is supplanting the iPod. Might be just as well: I've left my iPod in the OR a couple of times.

Many surgeons seem to like the music no matter what. For me, there are still times that call for silence. Maybe it reflects poor powers of concentration; but if things get dicey, when I find myself working in a critical area where anatomy is distorted, where things threaten to go south at any moment, I ask everyone to stop talking, want the music shut down, and I go into a world of my own: focused, eyes boring in, tunneling into the job at hand with complete purpose of mind. No distractions, no fun. It still works for me.