Surgeons should have warm-up session before they enter the OR

The more you work at something, the more practice time you put in, the better the results. Even the best athletes in the world practice almost every day and warm up before every game.

NHL hockey players have morning skates, drills and scrimmages and then go play at night.

Major League ballplayers take batting practice, infield practice and maybe a pepper game or two and then go out and play nine innings or more.

PGA Tour players practice most every day; all of them before their round, many of them after a round as well.

Pro hockey players play 80 regular season games each year, pro ballplayers play 162. The number for pro golfers varies by individual.

But what if you were scheduled for an operation? Would you want the surgeon to walk in, scrub up and cut into you?

Or would you prefer he/she warmed up first? Practised a little? That is apparently what a lot of surgeons are now doing, thanks to Dr. Teodor Grantcharov at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto.

Dr. Grantcharov has pioneered a 15-minute surgical warm-up on a simulator that duplicates the procedures he’s about to perform.

The doctor says this way, the risk to the patient is greatly minimized.

“You’ve gone through the motions, practiced the procedures and now, in the OR, you’re more comfortable,” he says.

Allan Waters was the founder and manager of CHUM Radio in Toronto — famous among radio people through the 1970s. Rich, too.

About $5 million of his money was left to what is now the Allan Waters Family Simulation Centre at St. Michael’s.

Expanding on Dr. Grantcherov’s lead, the Simulation Centre trains medical students, physicians, surgeons and researchers on patient simulators, somewhat like flight simulators do for pilots.

See, practice does make perfect and no humans were harmed in the writing of this column.

Fred Trainor is a retired broadcaster. He lives in Okanagan Falls. Email: fredtrainor@shaw.ca