STHC-L: The Science, Technology and Health Care Archives Forum

OR table myth

• Date: Friday, March 01, 2002 3:20 PM
• To: sthc-l@library.ucla.edu
• From: Sacharski, Susan <ssachars@nmh.org>
• Subject: OR table myth
• Message-ID: [not retrieved]

Can anyone help me out on a Friday afternoon as a March snowstorm
approaches?  In our new hospital facility there's an oak table that came
from one of our predecessor hospitals (opened in 1929).  There is an urban
legend among some staff that it's an old "surgical table," and though I've
tried my best to convince folks that it was simply part of the Tudor-style
interior design furnishings and not ever used as an operating table, the
myth persists. In fact, I've been asked to draft wording for a plaque!  Even
if it came from the earliest surviving facility (1885), I can't imagine that
wood tables would have been in use in a hospital setting in the late 19th
century. This wooden table has similar length/width dimensions, but the top
is completely flat and has no other discernible relationship to an OR table
that I can detect. 

Is there even the slightest possibility that this could have in fact been
used as an OR table in a urban hospital?  

Thanks!

Susan Sacharski
Archivist
Northwestern Memorial Hospital
312.926.3090
ssachars@nmh.org