Can listening to AC/DC or The Beatles improve a surgeon’s performance?
Music can affect our mood. Spinning some classical compositions might have a calming effect or improve your studying, while more upbeat playlists might prove to be the perfect accompaniment if you’re looking to psyche yourself up for a first date or a big night out. Some songs leave us in tears, others leave us beaming or desperate to dance. And some music, namely the hard rock of AC/DC, might even improve a surgeon’s performance on the operating table.
It’s difficult to imagine an operating room with the sounds of ‘Highway to Hell’ or ‘You Shook Me All Night Long’ blasting through the speakers. It’s even more difficult to imagine how this might enhance a surgeon’s accuracy or speed at their job, rather than becoming off-putting or distracting. However, researchers at Heidelberg University in Germany put the former scenario into practice, proving the latter in the process.
In a study called ‘Effect of Genre and amplitude of music during laparoscopic surgery,’ researchers asked surgeons to perform laparoscopic surgery in a number of conditions to see whether music had any impact on their performance. In one scenario, they performed surgery with no music, against which the other two conditions could be compared. In the other two conditions, the surgery was accompanied by two types of music.
The researchers chose Liverpudlian legends the Beatles as their soft-rock soundtrack and elected rockers AC/DC for the harder condition. Neither artist seems like the perfect accompaniment for something as complex and intricate as surgery, but the research proved otherwise. Both types of music had an effect on the surgeons’ performances, as did the volume they were played at.
“With soft rock in medium volume, participants were faster in peg transfer and more accurate in suture with intracorporeal knot,” the researchers explained in their study results, “The total score was improved by enhancing accuracy.” However, the study found that this improvement was lost if the volume of the Beatles’ soft rock was heightened.
They also found improvements in the hard-rock conditions. When AC/DC was played at a medium volume during the surgery, the surgeons were faster at both precision cutting and balloon preparation, without losing any accuracy. Unlike the soft-rock condition, the surgeons’ performance also improved when the volume of the music was increased.
The study concluded that “the effect of music on laparoscopic performance might depend on the combination of music genre and amplitude. A generally well-accepted music genre in the right volume could improve the performance of novice surgeons during laparoscopic surgeries.” It’s a strange and surprising result but an undeniably interesting one.
This study only serves as further proof of the effect that music can have on us, even on our performance within the workplace. It’s difficult to imagine surgeries instating mandatory AC/DC listening during surgeries anytime soon, but it seems that listening to the hard rockers does influence the speed and performance of those performing surgery.
It’s also interesting to think about how other genres of music might have influenced performance, too, beyond the realm of rock. Could classical music impact the performance of surgeons? Would it have a different effect on speed, given the differing speed of the music itself? How might pop music affect performance on the operating table? Or something much stranger like vaporwave or egg punk?
For now, all we know is that listening to AC/DC seems to improve your performance in surgery.
