Do Surgeons Swear When Operating?

Surgeons, whether deserved or not, have a reputation of being mean-spirited and foul-mouthed as a group overall. It does not help that TV shows and movies perpetuate this reputation.

Well, a study was actually carried out to see if surgeons are truly foul-mouthed or not and published their findings in the British Medical Journal in 1999.

Using a grading system based on how bad the swearing is, researchers secretly tallied how often surgeons used profanity in the operating room.

The observation was carried out over 100 operations totaling 80 hours and 30 minutes of operating time.

What they found was that orthopedic surgeons were found to be the most foul-mouthed with an overall score of 41 (zero being no swearing at all).

ENT surgeons had the best score of 2 when one surgeon exclaimed "bugger" during one case.

Here's the chart...

Taken from BMJ

Reference:
Surgeons swear when operating: fact or myth? BMJ 1999; 319 doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.319.7225.1611 (Published 18 December 1999)

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Dr. House of TV Fame Would Never Survive in Real World

Would YOU as the patient see a doctor who is a well-known jerk, abuses drugs, gives the wrong diagnosis more often than not, and is known to like ordering very invasive tests??? Be honest...

The other week, a patient with a chronic cough exclaimed to me that she wished the fictional character Dr. House of TV fame actually existed in real life, because he was somebody who can diagnose anything.

I looked her straight in the eye and told her that somebody like Dr. House in the real world would be a physician nobody would want to see for many reasons:

1. In the real world, patients expect doctors to have the correct diagnosis from the beginning (might forgive one wrong diagnosis). Dr. House seems to always get things wrong multiple times before he gets it right. I seriously doubt most patients would have stuck around as long as they do on the TV shows before going elsewhere.
2. In order to achieve that correct diagnosis, Dr. House seems to pursue invasive tests which in reality is something patients rarely like to pursue... and often get second opinions to determine if really needed.
3. Dr. House is fairly abrasive with his colleagues and even with his own patients which pretty much guarantees one star ratings on physician rating websites like HealthGrades.com and Vitals.com.
4. Dr. House is addicted to vicodin, morphine, and cocaine... That pretty much guarantees loss of hospital privileges and perhaps even his medical license to practice in the real world. Furthermore, what would you do as a patient if you found out that your doctor abuses drugs??? Most will go elsewhere.

So given what I know patients want in reality, it boggles my mind why patients in the real world think Dr. House is so great and wish a fictional character like him truly existed.

To flip things around... the real question is why aren't real world patients more forgiving of physician fallibility like those on TV? I'm the first to admit that physicians (in the real world) are not perfect though the expectation is that we are.

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