I was not supposed to be in the operating theatre.
I was only there because I had been volunteering at the hospital long enough for people to assume I understood things I very much did not understand.
At first, I thought “shadowing a surgical team” meant quietly observing.
That assumption lasted exactly nine minutes.
The operating room was nothing like I imagined. It was not silent, and it was not calm. It was controlled noise—sharp instructions, soft beeping, and movements so precise they almost looked rehearsed.
Everything had a rhythm.
Everything except me.
I was told to stay in the corner and not interfere, which I considered a reasonable instruction and immediately obeyed with great seriousness.
Then the shift changed.
And the mood changed with it.
A new team walked in looking exhausted in a way that suggested they had been awake for longer than was medically advisable. One of them stretched, looked around the room, and said, completely casually, “We’re doing stress release rounds today.”
No one reacted like this was unusual.
I did not ask questions immediately. I had learned that asking questions too early in hospitals often creates new problems for you personally.
The first sign something was wrong was not panic.
It was preparation.
A timer was placed on a counter.
A line was taped on the floor.
Someone adjusted their mask and said, “Same rules as last time.”
I leaned slightly toward the nearest nurse.
“What rules,” I whispered.
She didn’t look up. “Controlled vocal release.”
“That sounds medical.”
“It is,” she said. “Sort of.”
I waited for clarification that never came.
Instead, one of the interns stepped forward and took a deep breath like they were preparing for an exam.
Then they screamed.
Not in pain.
Not in fear.
In what I can only describe as structured volume.
It lasted exactly four seconds.
The timer beeped.
Someone nodded.
I stared.
“This is normal?” I whispered.
“Helps prevent burnout,” the nurse replied.
Another intern stepped forward.
Screamed louder.
The monitor beeped steadily in the background like it had seen worse and refused to care.
That was when I made my mistake.
I said, aloud, “Imagine having a screaming contest in the middle of a hospital operation? Tsk, could never be me.”
The room went quiet in the way rooms do when they are deciding whether you are funny or a problem.
The surgeon turned slightly.
“Interesting opinion,” he said. “Would you like to demonstrate an alternative stress method?”
I immediately understood I had said something irreversible.
“No,” I said quickly. “I believe I am more of a silent suffering specialist.”
Unfortunately, that was not an accepted exemption category.
A marker was placed in my hand.
“Line is there,” someone said.
I looked at the patient on the table.
Then at the team watching me with the calm expectation of people who had done this before.
“This is still a medical environment,” I tried again.
“It is,” the nurse agreed. “We’re very efficient about it.”
There was no escape route that did not involve humiliation.
So I stepped forward.
Took a breath.
And screamed.
Badly.
But apparently within acceptable clinical range, because someone nodded and wrote something down.
“Duration?” the surgeon asked.
“Three point two seconds,” someone replied.
“Improvement from last week,” another voice said approvingly.
I blinked.
“You track this?”
“Of course we track it,” the nurse said. “We track everything.”
That was the moment I understood the hospital correctly for the first time.
It was not chaos.
It was exhaustion turned into procedure.
Even screaming had been organized so people could survive doing impossible things without breaking.
Afterwards, when the surgery continued as if nothing unusual had happened, I returned quietly to my corner.
The nurse passed by and adjusted my scrubs slightly.
“You did fine,” she said.
“I screamed,” I replied.
“Yes.”
“That is not a sentence I expected to say today.”
She finally smiled. “You get used to it.”
As I left the theatre hours later, I heard the next shift being briefed.
“Same protocol,” someone said.
Then, after a pause, another voice added, “We have a new participant.”
I stopped at the door.
Looked back once.
And understood, very clearly, that in places like this, survival did not always look like silence.
Sometimes it looked like being loud enough for five seconds so you could keep being useful for the next twelve hours.10Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTewRivKLlo
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