Of football and operation theatres

Sir, The editorial entitled “world cup football… in the theatre now, everyday”[1] in your July–September issue was indeed very apt and timely. The analogy between the “world cup” and the operation theater is near perfect. It made excellent reading with some meaningful messages. Especially, the author's emphasis on eternal vigilance, communication and teamwork amongst all the others is ever so relevant. Wouldn’t it be nice if there were some referees too in the theater. Perhaps a senior and experienced anesthesiologist, who may as well be the administrative head of the operation theater, would be the most appropriate referee. Yellow and red cards are penalty cards that are shown to football players who intentionally indulge in dangerous and foul play [Figure 1]. A yellow card is a warning, a second yellow card shown for repetitive foul play mandates the player to leave the field. A red card indicates that the player must leave the field immediately, and the referee may not allow a substitute to replace the defaulting player. An occasional yellow card and perhaps a red card for the dangerous players would ensure more order and safety in the operation theater.Figure 1: Yellow and red cards for operation theaters now!Yet another analogy that could be drawn is that of “sudden death” that decides the outcome of a well fought game. When at the end of 90 min of play in a game of football no winner can be declared due to equal scores, additional time of 30 min is allotted, whichever team scores The first goal in the extra time is declared the winner. Even though “sudden death” in the operation theater has an entirely different connotation, it is tempting to draw an analogy to football. The players in the operation theater train hard to prevent, look out for and manage “sudden death” and quite often emerge the winner! The author must be congratulated for a brilliant parallel drawn between the game of football and operation theaters.

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