Set aside all the challenging years of medical school and residency—the exhausting shifts, endless exams, and loads of debt—to be a surgeon requires unique personality traits. One of the most important is “extraversion,” according to a 2022 report published in The Surgeon, a medical journal.
Extraverts thrive on an audience, which could explain why early surgeries—especially the pre-anesthesia, pre-germ theory type—were sometimes done in amphitheaters. In such dramatic settings, surgeons took center stage, working quickly and with great flair, calmly describing for their captivated audiences, while patients twisted and yelled in pain.
By the late 19th century, the development of anesthesia significantly reduced the drama. When the germ theory of disease—a concept Popular Science reviewed in September 1883—finally gained acceptance, the foolishness of performing surgeries in germ-infested public settings sealed the fate of surgery as a performing art.
Or did it?
Today, resourceful surgeons use state-of-the-art recording equipment, and aspiring surgeons still learn by watching surgery videos. Additionally, the inherent drama of surgical procedures continues to attract audiences, as seen in the many popular medical series like Surgeons: At the Edge of Life, Nip Tuck, and ER.
Don’t take my word for it–check out a few extraverted surgeons throughout the ages, including scenes from Popular Science.
1875
The year, 1875. The place, Jefferson Medical College’s surgical amphitheater in Philadelphia. The lead actor: Dr. Samuel Gross, renowned 19th century surgeon. In this masterpiece, artist Thomas Eakins memorialized the performing art of surgery.
1890
Even though the technology used to capture surgical performances had been upgraded from portraiture to daguerreotype, in 1890, surgeons continued to perform before public audiences without taking prudent antiseptic measures. This photo taken by Augustine H. Folsom depicts an operation underway at Boston City Hospital.
1906
Surgeons were still performing before public audiences in 1906, and still eschewing asepsis. A painting by Franz Skarbina, shows chief surgeon Ernst von Bergmann operating on a patient at a surgery theater in Berlin.
1933
By 1933, operating rooms had become sterile rooms, surgeons wore scrubs, and audience members were kept behind glass walls to prevent germ exposure. But…
1938
Even as operating room design continued to improve, minimizing germ exposure and maximizing access to surgical technology, the commitment to theater remained. This 1938 design for an operating room in a hospital in Lille, France includes bird’s-eye balcony seats for the surgeon’s audience.
1947
2022
Surgeon theater fell largely out of favor over the years. But if watching surgeons perform is your thing, or if you’re a doctor and need to collaborate on a surgery, stay tuned for augmented and virtual reality operating theater coming to a VR headset near you, where the audience appears as avatars and the patient a hologram.
