Why can’t we have some surgeon-friendly anaesthetists?” I questioned my anaesthetist, who had bellowed back at me for asking her to hurry up amidst her getting my patient ready for surgery. “I need to secure an extra intravenous line, and an arterial line since we are turning him prone,” she started explaining, ending with “…why can’t we have more anaesthetist-friendly surgeons instead!” rolling her eyeballs almost up to the ceiling. I could see condensed air emanating from the sides of her mask, the silent gestural interpretation of having to put up with a surgeon’s low IQ. To infuriate her even more, I retorted, “It’s just a simple cervical laminectomy!”

“There’s no such thing as just a ‘simple’ surgery… you know this better than I do!” she exclaimed, reminding me of my own neurotic obsession to fuss about the tiniest and most frivolous detail in every single operation. “He has a bad heart; you know that, right? We’ve even taken a DOT consent.” “What’s DOT?” I asked, not being a fan of abbreviations. “Death. On. Table!” she said, with a short, emphatic pause after each word. This time, my eyes reached the ceiling and came rolling back. “You surgeons don’t see anything apart from the organ you’re operating on, right?” she went on, putting the final taping to secure all her paraphernalia. “Of course, we do,” admitting to myself quietly that we often don’t. “We’ve even got fitness for surgery from the cardiologist,” explaining my diligence. “Fitness for surgery is a meaningless term. Anyone who can lie down is fit for surgery. Fitness for anaesthesia is what’s needed,” she retorted, having used that line umpteen times before, borrowing from something she had once read somewhere.