The Bible says that if we don't hear, see or speak evil, we ourselves shall be spared all evil. That got me thinking about whether this sort of divine intervention applies as well to the OR.

You don't want to hear...
This patient weighs 350 pounds.
It's an arthroscopic ACL and you're either going to hold the leg or some kind of retractor.

You have an add-on.
It's 1445 and you're either the late person or on call.

Circulator: Your sponge count is not correct.
Surgeon: Well, it's not in the wound.
Like you didn't already check everything in the room before you told him the sponge count status. Check the wound again!

Is the Dall-Miles set in the room?
Just after you hear the reamers stop on a total hip revision.

Beep, Beep, Beep, Beeeeeee ....................

Surgeon: I'm ready for the graft.
Scrub nurse: I can't find the graft.
Circulator: Is this the graft on the floor?

Supervisor: Dr. Godzilla has a case scheduled in your room tomorrow.
Circulator: He hasn't worked here in 10 years.
Scrub nurse: Uh, well, we sort of threw all his preference sheets away yesterday.

Is the patient asleep? He's moving.

Patient: I need to go to the bathroom now.
You just moved that patient to the OR bed and connected all the monitors.

So, do we have the stuff in the room to open with?
The surgeon has been scoping this shoulder for the last two-and-a-half hours.

Did you peek?
What a co-worker asks after he gets back from having a surgery you circulated on.

About last night.
You can really do without hearing about the mating habits of your 25-year-old co-worker on Monday mornings.

But I'm having a tonsillectomy.
The schedule and consent states hemorrhoidectomy.

Anesthesia to surgeon: How much of that fluid in the suction canister is irrigation?
Anesthesia then turns to you: Any chance we could get some blood if we need it?
Well, no, does this look like a hospital to you?

Uh, could I have some methylene blue and could you irrigate it up the Foley catheter?
Oh, please tell me that he didn't go near the ureter. He's doing a laparoscopic tubal ligation. He never wants an indwelling Foley in these procedures.

Clang
The last sterile pan of instruments hitting the floor on a day when the autoclave is down.

Thud
The OR light bonking the surgeon in the head as you're trying your best to position it for him to see.

Rumble
That deep gurgling in the stomach during anesthesia induction, a sure sign the patient is about to throw up on you.

You don't want to see...
The surgeon you're about to work with, in his boxers and black knee-high socks, because you barged into the wrong dressing room.

What kind of undergarments your co-worker wears or doesn't wear in the dressing room or through her scrubs.

A surgeon's scrub pants fall to his ankles while he's scrubbed in. (Pulling those up is not in the job description.)

A "code brown" on the OR bed. The patient did tell you he needed to use the restroom.

Tobacco juice running down the chin of a patient who just reported he hadn't had anything to eat or drink since midnight.

The look on the surgeon's face when you've just stuck him with the needle tip cautery and your finger's still on the button to cauterize.

The patient's blue hair covering slipping off during surgery before anesthesia tells you that the patient has head lice. (Makes me itch just to think about it.)

The surgeon's pager and cell going off at the same time (most likely his wife - again) while you look helplessly across the room to see the last of the 3,000cc of fluid (with lots of bubbles) empty into the arthroscopy tubing in the knee scope, while the pump starts making that sound the surgeon is going to recognize as the pump's having gone dry.
Your 78-year-old male patient's many piercings.

An infected procedure and not having oil of wintergreen available to put on your mask. (Think of a cat coughing up a hairball)

A rather portly surgeon wearing knee socks being held up with garters, walking down the OR hall in a scrub dress because no scrub pants fit him.

The patient's hand grabbing your derriere as he's going to sleep while you're standing there assisting anesthesia with the induction.

The underwear of an anesthetized patient you're about to put in stirrups. (What is it about patients not wanting to give up their underwear?)

A male patient doing a hands-on inventory of his anatomy as he's waking up after surgery.

You don't want to speak...
Are you in yet?
A male surgeon hearing this becomes totally incapacitated for about 15 seconds.

I've never seen or done one of these before.
Better to say, "I've never seen one done quite this way before."

I'm sorry while you're trying not to laugh. They have a tendency not to believe you.