Medicine: Operation Dialogue

What do surgeons say during an operation? In the Hollywood version their speech is tense, clipped. A new recording by Folkways Records of an actual operation in an eastern U.S. hospital shows that, in reality, surgeons sound like expert mechanics bent over a balky V8. Thus:

An older surgeon is supervising a young surgeon in an operation to remove a cyst from a small boy's neck. He keeps repeating phrases like "spread and cut" or "stay close to the object you're removing" to impress operative technique on his charge. "What are you scared of?" he needles the young surgeon. "This is lots of fun."

When the novice hesitates to make the kind of sharp, precise cuts that the body can heal most easily, the old one remarks caustically: "Now we're back to pecking and scratching." When something seems to go wrong, he cries bluntly: "Grab the damn thing—with something—not with the scissors!" When the young one has pulled himself together, the old one rumbles: "Now you're cooking."

The old one wonders why a certain anesthetic is not used more often, and the young one chuckles: "It causes bleeding. So do we." Suddenly, the senior surgeon explodes: "Can we get that damn light a little better? It's not satisfactory . . . Holy suffering Moses! Now it's all dark!"

The boy with the cyst made a perfect recovery, left the hospital in three days.