Should doctors be multi tasking while in surgery?

Answer 1

Absolutely. He has to be monitoring vital signs and understanding what the implications and ramifications are when those vital signs change beyond certain limits. Fortunately, the surgical team does most of the actual monitoring, but the surgeon has to deal with it when those signs change.

What about his other patients? Suppose while he is doing an appendectomy on someone, one of his other patients, say you, or your mom, goes code blue. Do you want him to NOT check his beeper?

Answer 2

SteveA8 has no idea what he is talking about.

I am an anesthesiologist, so I spend all day with surgeons.

For the most part, they concentrate on the surgery. Occasionally, they get phone calls or messages, and then they take a short break (if appropriate) and deal with the issue. Usually there is conversation during surgery, but not always, and never if things aren't going well. Most OR's have music playing, but not too loudly.

Vital signs are monitored by the anesthesiologist. The surgeon cannot do both the anesthesia and the surgery (unless it's a very minor case under light sedation, and even then, there is a nurse monitoring the VS) We communicate problems with the surgeon, just to keep them informed, and most of the time, they reciprocate. (It's important for us to know, for example, if the surgeon expects a lot of bleeding).

Surgeons do not leave one patient to attend to another. They finish the operation. If there is an emergency, someone else handles it.

Answer 3

NO!!! surgery is very complicated and they should stay to one thing only...