NORMAL - Dr. Keith Kattner had everything he needed to perform a successful lower back surgery: an anesthetized patient, state-of-the-art equipment, trained medical professionals at his side and his stack of CDs.

As he performed a decompressive laminectomy on a female patient in an operating room at BroMenn Regional Medical Center, Normal, the Rolling Stones' "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction" blared in the background.

"It relaxes me," said the neurosurgeon with Central Illinois Neuro Health Sciences, Bloomington.

"I listen to music all the time in the OR (operating room)," Kattner said. "Without music in the OR, it gets tense and people, especially the surgeon, don't perform as well when they're tense."

Kattner is not alone. Most surgeons have music playing as they work in the operating room, said Carol Dirks, a registered nurse and BroMenn's director of perioperative services.

So, if you've had surgery in Bloomington-Normal, odds are that your procedure had a soundtrack.

"Every OR I've been in has a stereo of some flavor," said Dr. Jerome Oakey, an orthopedic surgeon with McLean County Orthopedics, Bloomington.

"(Twenty) years ago, eye surgery was totally quiet. There was no talking and music," said Karen Magers, director of Bloomington Eye Institute for Gailey Eye Clinic, Bloomington. "The surgeons wanted it quiet.

"But society has changed. We talk during surgery and some of the doctors feel comfortable with music going."

"To sit in the OR with no sound is nerve-racking," said Dr. Dan Brownstone, an ophthalmologist with Eye Surgical Associates. "Imagine sitting in a room with no noise. It's annoying.

"I like music in the background during surgery," said Brownstone. "It relaxes me."

"If it's silent and no one is talking, no one wants to make a sound, thinking that it will irritate the surgeon," said Dr. Scott Morgan, a urologist with Urologic Surgery Associates, Normal.

"I'm someone who needs a little background music so I can focus on what I'm doing," Oakey said.

Music also helps surgeons to keep their pace, especially during longer procedures, several doctors said.

"I time myself by the CDs," Kattner said. "I may have a two-CD case or a five-CD case."

"Even if it's a one-hour case, I need background music to take the tension away," said Dr. Chad Tattini, a cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon in Bloomington. "It's a stress reliever and helps the time pass. One hour of stitching can be mundane at times."

Whether surgeons listen to music or not depends on how they process information, Dirks said. Some people like background music when they work. Others prefer it quiet.

Dr. Finn Amble, a facial and reconstructive surgeon with Carle Clinic-Bloomington/Normal, prefers quiet when he performs surgery at The Center for Outpatient Medicine and BroMenn.

"I don't listen to any music," Amble said. "When I'm doing surgery, for me to function the best way I can, I need to focus 100 percent on the surgery and nothing else. I find music and too much extraneous noise to be distracting."

"In surgery, you don't get all that many second chances," Amble said.

"Everybody needs to find what works for them," Amble said. "When I come into surgery, the music goes off and when I go out, it often comes back on again."

What surgeons listen to depends on their musical taste and that of nurses and others in the operating room, and on the length and type of procedure.

"We try to find something acceptable to everyone," Morgan said. "I'm 40 and the vast majority of people in the OR are 30 to 50, so we can easily come to agreement on songs from the '70s and '80s.

"Even if you don't like the music, if it has a rhythm and a beat, it helps to keep you moving forward. You want something that keeps everyone going. But it's supposed to be in the background, not something you're focusing on. When I ask for an instrument, the nurses need to hear me."

"The etiquette is, if someone says 'Turn it down," you turn it down," Oakey said.

Brownstone said, "It's quiet enough so we can hear each other and the monitors. We've got to communicate with each other. I don't sit there and rock out to this stuff."

Nurses can deal with the music, if they don't like it, because "we're attuned to multi-tasking," Dirks said. But if patient safety becomes a concern, nurses speak up, she said.

Morgan sees another advantage to music in the OR.

"With music, it's less likely that there will be unnecessary chatting, which can be a distraction."

"We're focused on the patient," Morgan said. "It's background music to keep us going on the right direction."

"Safety is the first issue," Oakey said. "I wouldn't do it if it interfered with patient safety."

Music is off during certain times, including what Oakey calls the "time out." That's when the patient is brought into the room before surgery and the staff double checks that they have the correct patient and will be operating on the correct side and performing the correct procedure.

"We go down a whole checklist, and during that time, no music is played," Oakey said.

"The patient likes to have something going on in the background," Oakey said. "It helps him to relax. They're going into this strange place, hearing bleeps and blips, and when the music is playing, it takes their mind off the other stuff."

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Musical hits, misses in the OR

By Paul Swiech | pswiech@pantagraph.com

BLOOMINGTON - Central Illinois surgeons listen to just about everything from Mozart to AC/DC.

Here's a sampling:

Dr. Keith Kattner

"I'm just a rock 'n' roll person," said Dr. Keith Kattner, a neurosurgeon with Central Illinois Neuro Health Sciences. His surgeries at BroMenn and at OSF St. Joseph Medical Center include operating on brain aneurysms, brain tumors and herniated discs.

Kattner listens to rock from 1964 to 1970 and alternative rock from 1992 to today. His favorite is The Doors.

"Jim Morrison had a high intellectual capacity," Kattner said. "There's a lot of poetry in his music.

"I take an artistic approach to surgery. It's the art of medicine. A lot of surgeons are also musicians and artists," said Kattner, who paints.

"When I'm doing complicated cases, a good Doors CD relaxes me. I dim the lights on the OR and I get a good piece of music going because I want to maximize my effectiveness.

Kattner said other medical professionals in the OR get no say on the type of music played during his surgeries.

"I'm a dictator," he said with a laugh. "But I don't like it too loud because people need to communicate."

Kattner's play list:

The Doors

Rolling Stones

The Beatles

Dick Dale

Velvet Underground

Nirvana

Red Hot Chili Peppers

the Sublime

Everclear

Kattner says "turn that off":

Hip-hop

Rap

Country

Dr. Scott Morgan

"I'm into hard rock," began Dr. Scott Morgan. "I like the big-hair bands from the '70s and '80s.

"But I'm also a country boy from LeRoy. I used to drive a truck. I like Garth Brooks and Hank Williams Jr."

What type of music Morgan, a urologist with Urologic Surgery Associates, plays in the OR depends on the case. Procedures he performs at BroMenn, St. Joseph, the UroHealth Institute and Bloomington-Normal Healthcare Surgery Center include lithotripsy (sound wave destruction of kidney stones), prostate surgeries, surgery for urinary incontinence and male genital surgery.

"If we have a younger person with bad cancer, you're not going to listen to bee-boppy music because of the serious nature of the case. You never want to do anything disrespectful in the OR." He may listen to something mellower, like jazz.

But most of the time, it's hard rock. Deciding what to play is a collaborative effort. "But the ultimate say in the OR is the surgeon's."

"In a long case, I may listen to easy listening jazz or blues." But when it's time to wrap up the surgery, he tries to get a second wind by putting in something more upbeat.

Morgan has a stash of CDs at most places where he operates and has 1,200 songs on his iPhone.

Morgan is into:

Kiss

Billy Squier

Van Halen

AC/DC

Paul Stanley

Lynyrd Skynyrd

The Eagles

Garth Brooks

Hank Williams Jr.

Morgan doesn't like:

Rap

Bee-bop

Talk radio

Dr. Jerome Oakey

"I have 2,500 to 2,600 songs on my iPod," said Dr. Jerome Oakey, an orthopedic surgeon with McLean County Orthopedics. "I have some rap, U2.

"A lot of my surgeries are done with a regional anesthetic, so the patients are in a twilight," said Oakey, who performs hand, shoulder, elbow and thumb surgeries at The Center for Outpatient Medicine (T-COM), BroMenn and St. Joseph. "At T-COM, I have an iPod player in each room. At the hospitals, I bring my own portable iPod.

When patients are sedated but awake, Oakey plays softer music.

"If they're awake and cognizant, we play something vanilla. If they're under general anesthesia, I put the iPod on shuffle and whatever comes up. If the nurses don't like it, we can fast forward to the next one."

"When I operate on kids and adolescents, I'll ask 'em - to put them at ease - 'What do your parents not let you listen to?' But there are certain nurses who can't stand Eminem, so he gets fast-forwarded quite frequently.

"Very few people say 'I can't stand Van Morrison or Elvis Costello.' They don't offend anyone."

Oakey's iPod includes:

Van Morrison

Elvis Costello

U2

Sarah McLachlan

Squeeze

Sheryl Crow

Sugar

Smashing Pumpkins

Red Hot Chili Peppers

Otis Redding

Pearl Jam

LL Cool J

Eminem

Oakey's iPod doesn't include:

Classical music

Country music

Dr. Dan Brownstone

"I play piano and, before medical school, I started in music school," said Dr. Dan Brownstone, an ophthalmologist with Eye Surgical Associates.

"As an avid classical music fan, I prefer to listen to something that is not too bombastic. I prefer serene music."

While performing LASIK, refractive, cataract and glaucoma surgery at Eye Surgical Associates and at Eastland Medical Plaza SurgiCenter, Brownstone listens to classical music radio stations.

He likes baroque music "because it has no bombastic surprises. The baroque and Renaissance are friendly to the surgical environment."

Most of Brownstone's patients are awake, with topical and local anesthetic. "If they hate my taste in music, they haven't told me."

Brownstone's classics:

Mozart

Handel

Bach

Where Brownstone draws the line:

Country

Dr. Chad Tattini

"I listen to virtually all kinds of music, except country," said Dr. Chad Tattini, a cosmetic and reconstructive plastic surgeon. "My iPod has a mix of music: top 40, progressive, '60s and '70s, classic rock, rap, alternative rock.

"I'm a drummer and Don Henley has been my idol since childhood. It's always a good time to listen to the Eagles.

"Surgery is my passion. Music is my passion. It's great to have both at the same time."

Tattini - whose procedures include breast and body contouring, breast augmentation, reduction and reconstruction, and abdominal plasties (tummy tucks) - asks patients under local anesthetic what type of music they prefer.

Tattini - who performs surgeries at T-COM, BroMenn and St. Joseph - said "Close to the end of a procedure, I need louder and heavier music. Winding down the stretch, it helps to keep me going."

Tattini's likes:

The Eagles

Classic rock

Alternative rock

Tattini's dislikes:

Country