Words & Thoughts Affect Surgical Outcomes

"For years, it had been suspected by many doctors (and dismissed by many more) that patients under anesthesia could hear their surgeon’s comments and that what they heard affected them. There were many anecdotal stories of doctors who, upon opening up a patient, would see a tumor and comment out loud that it looked malignant. And then, even though the tumor would later prove to be benign, the patient nevertheless would fade rapidly and be dead in a matter of days. Well, new studies are now proving that not only is this true, but to a degree far higher than previously imagined. Dr. Henry Bennett, a psychologist from the University of California Medical School at Davis, suggests that, under anesthesia, patients might be especially vulnerable to upsetting remarks they overhear since their normal coping techniques aren’t available to them.

Studies that support this statement include a number of patients who were given the suggestion during surgery that one of their hands was becoming warmer and the other cooler. The temperature of both hands changed accordingly. In another study, patients were played a taped message while they were anesthetized during surgery that told them that if they heard the same message later, they should signify this by touching their ears in a postoperative interview. Later, in the interview, all of the patients absentmindedly tugged at their ears, although not one of the patients could recall having heard the message. During back surgery, which normally causes urination problems for the patients after surgery, researchers suggested to the anesthetized patients that they would be able to relax their pelvic muscles after the surgery, and thus would need no catheter. None of the patients who received the suggestion subsequently needed a catheter."

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