Thank God for Anesthesia

I was in the kitchen the other night when the wife hollers from the living room, “come watch this. Doctor Oz is operating.” Not that I watch such things, but because she thought I would find it interesting, I stuck my head in.

For those three or four people in the world not familiar with the good doctor, here is a short bio lifted from Wikipedia: Oz was educated at Tower Hill School in Wilmington, Delaware. In 1982, he received his undergraduate degree at Harvard University. In 1986, he obtained MD and MBA degrees respectively at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and The Wharton School. He was awarded the Captain's Athletic Award for leadership in college, was class president and then student body president during medical school.

Oz has been a professor at the Department of Surgery at Columbia University since 2001. He directs the Cardiovascular Institute and Complementary Medicine Program at New York-Presbyterian Hospital. His research interests include heart replacement surgery, minimally invasive cardiac surgery, and health care policy. With his collaborators, he has authored over 400 research papers, book chapters and medical books, and has received several patents.

This night, he was appearing in a show about things that go on in New York-Presbyterian Hospital. Oz was doing open-heart surgery on a woman with a hole between the chambers of her heart, and his daughter would be accompanying him in the operating room.

The show was a little annoying since it consisted of a series of flashes of different procedures going on that day. Finally, the segment came on to show a patient on the operating table with a crowd of people all in blue scrubs gathered around a cover with a slit in it that revealed the woman’s beating heart.

Everyone – except the patient – looked alike in their head-to-foot garb, but we could tell by the voice that the man poking around in this woman’s heart and describing the operation must have been doctor Oz. Suddenly and without warning you hear, “what’s that?”

My eyes popped open. What’s that! These words are right up there with “oops”, and “oh damn” that you never expect to hear on the operating table – especially from your surgeon. Mercifully, the woman was deep under anesthesia. Had I been the patient and not under anesthesia, I might have shouted something like, “What is that! Did you drop your watch in there? How many of these operations have you done doctor? You still don’t know the anatomy of the heart? Is it too late for a second opinion? Nurse, put me back together. I’m checking out of here!”

They got the woman’s heart repaired, but we never learned what prompted the doctor’s query of what must have been an unusual finding in her heart. You would think that a seasoned heart surgeon and celebrated television host might know better than to utter a phrase like that while poking around in someone’s heart on national television.

I have undergone a number of surgeries, and I have to wonder if this sort of thing is commonplace in operating rooms. If so, the doctor and I both have an additional reason to be thankful for anesthesia. If the surgery doesn’t kill you, the mindless chatter in the room might.