Heart rates of surgeons in theatre

Orthopaedic Surgeons' Cardiovascular Response During Total Hip Arthroplasty

“…Studies conducted during the last three decades that focused on monitoring and analyzing surgeons' work had different findings and reached contradictory conclusions [6,7,9,11,12,15,16,22,23,30]. The studies were all stress-based and mostly analyzed cardiovascular parameters, such as heart rate and heart rate variability.…”

“…In some of these studies, performing surgery was shown as ''exhausting for the body'' or ''increasing heart rate to more than 150/minutes'' [12,15]. In others, ''surgeons did not work physically remarkably hard nor demonstrated any obvious physiological signs of undue emotional stress'' [6]. Some studies concluded experienced surgeons were well adapted to the particular stress, although surgeons rated their stress as ''quite severe'' and ''lasting for hours'' [6,23].…”

“…In others, ''surgeons did not work physically remarkably hard nor demonstrated any obvious physiological signs of undue emotional stress'' [6]. Some studies concluded experienced surgeons were well adapted to the particular stress, although surgeons rated their stress as ''quite severe'' and ''lasting for hours'' [6,23]. Other studies used only heart rate variability as a surrogate parameter for increased sympathetic activity, ie, psychologic stress, while performing surgery [11,12].…”

“…Several studies did not specify the operative procedure during which the monitoring was performed [6,16,22,23], thus rendering the interpretation of emotional stress and especially physical demands impossible. Also, the number of participants-surgeons included in these studies was relatively small (two to 12; median, eight) [6,7,9,11,12,15,16,22,23,30], diminishing the power of the studies and introducing the possibility of selection bias.…”

“…Thus, it seems there are major differences in cardiovascular response during various types of operative procedures [6,7,9,11,12,15,16,22,23,30].…”