Let there be rock: Blaring AC/DC makes surgeons better at their job!

Heidelberg, Germany - If you have to go under the knife, you might want to ask your surgeon if they could play some AC/DC while they're operating.

The Beatles also had a positive effect on the doctors' performance, as long as they weren't turned up too loud.
The Beatles also had a positive effect on the doctors' performance, as long as they weren't turned up too loud.  © 123RF/ akkamulator

A new study from Germany's Heidelberg University found that surgeons who operated while listening to loud hard rock were more precise.

Researchers looked into the effect different music genres and sound volume had on surgeons speed and accuracy during laparoscopic surgery.

AC/DC was picked to represent hard rock and The Beatles flew the flag for soft rock. If you'd expect the dreamier soundscape of The Beatles to help surgical precision, you'd be wrong.

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When AC/DC was blaring, the time it took for surgeons to make a precision cut dropped from 236 seconds to 139, as The Sun reported.

It's true that The Beatles also had a generally positive effect on precision and speed, but when Hey Jude was played at higher volumes, the positive effects diminished.

"Our results show that both soft rock and hard rock can enhance surgical performance. For hard rock music, the positive effect was especially noticeable when the music was played in high volume," Cui Yang from Heidelberg University, Germany, wrote in Langenbeck’s Archives of Surgery.

He continued, "It is possible that music with high rhythmically could provide a tempo to keep up the speed of the performance and thus enhance task performance."

Let there be rock in the operating room!

Cover photo: 123RF/ akkamulator

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