For the past seven years, and at two different institutions, I have had the pleasure of working in dedicated laparoscopy suites. No longer does my neck hurt from looking up at a tower with a monitor fixed at a non-intuitive height! I can also control much of the OR from a nice touch-screen control panel, and there is more working space. And yet, despite these advantages, I am quite sick of the boom.

It is quite literally a headache to smash your head (BOOM!) into one of the floating monitor panels, and at least three times a week a resident, fellow, nurse, or surgeon sees stars.

The poor design also makes it difficult to position the lights, towers, and monitors, as the arms are constantly swinging into and limiting each other. The system also doesn’t protect monitors very well (which scratch easily anyway).

Really, this is just a plea to the manufacturers. Focus on design a bit. Better systems will make the lights, tower and monitors more intuitive to position. Pad the instruments so that the head boom does not result in major cranial trauma, and protect my fancy Nth generation flatscreens from scratches! Until them, I’ll continue having nighmares about things that go “BOOM” in the night.