Ever since the 1st grade, music has been a big part of my life. My siblings and I all took weekly piano lessons until college and this knowledge stemmed into me picking up the trumpet in the 5th grade and teaching myself and friends to play the ukulele. I have always thought of music as a relaxing escape and it has helped me through a lot. (So much so that I cannot exercise without it now). The study I decided to look at for this post analyzes the effects of music in the surgical operating room. This study looked at the effects on the surgeon's task performance and the operating team's performance as a whole. Before reading, I thought about my previous experience shadowing in the operating room. I have seen doctors ask their patients on their music preference, I have heard Mozart and Chopin during surgery, and even the raucous Van Halen and some other 80s hair bands. This made me ask myself (a prospective surgeon) which music is best in the operating room.
This study used a systematic literature review to look at previous studies results. Out of 18 studies, they found that the positive effects of music in the operating room outweigh the negative ones. One thing they found was that music is very helpful in reducing patient anxiety pre-surgery. I would suggest that this would mean music is here to stay in the operating room. I believe that there should be more research on this topic. With more research, doctors, PAs, nurses, and anyone else in the operating room could truly maximize their performance and focus. The question I am truly interested in is what type of music is best? Personally, I know that some music is more distracting to me than others, especially when focusing on homework or reading. In my future education and clinical experience, I am excited to see which music I like best and how to work with the preferences of others in the operating room.
Hey Zach,
ReplyDeleteYou and me both! I love music and playing instruments. My first instrument was guitar which then turned into learning piano and drums. I find it just as relaxing too (playing or listening to it). Anyway, this is really interesting to find that music can be a strong tool that can enhance our focus (whether it be in the operating room, our rooms, or in the library). It’s interesting that the type of music and how its being played can affect our focus as pointed in the article you referred (i.e. loud music might impair focus while medium-volume classical music can enhance our focus).
When I study, I listen to music very often (lo-fi if you’re curious). I found a study that analyzed how background music can effect attention. Essentially, participants were exposed to music with lyrics or without lyrics. In the end, it was found that music with lyrics had significantly negative effects on concentration and attention (Shin). Although this paper didn’t show that music can improve performance, it did show that lyrics can mess us up. I’m curious to see if this translate well into the operating room which is in a more social setting since we would be working with others compared to studying at the library. I wonder if different environments will yield different music genres to help with focus and attention.
References:
Shih, Y. N., Huang, R. H., & Chiang, H. Y. (2012). Background music: effects on attention performance. Work (Reading, Mass.), 42(4), 573–578.