"When you wake up it'll all be over": Communication in the anaesthetic room

This article focuses upon communication between medical professionals and p atients within anaesthetic rooms-rooms in which patients are anaesthetized prior to entry into operating theaters. The most closely related field of s ociological study is research on surgery, which tends to consider anaesthes ia as a secondary specialism. Using Video data collected from anaesthetic r ooms and operating theaters in the United Kingdom, this article suggests th at, while the processes that have been identified in surgery have some rele vance for anaesthetic practice, there are important variations and differin g interactional contingencies which need to be taken into account In partic ular, the concept of "depersonalization" or "objectification" becomes parti cularly problematic in anaesthesia in ways that have not been broached in t he study of surgery.