OT or OR?!

In Australia, we call it an operating theatre (OT). For example, l had my tonsils out as a boy, and, many years later, a hernia procedure, in an operating theatre. I like that term! It is surely a graphic one, evoking thoughts of the patient's body as spectacle, and all those lights pouring down on him/her while the other 'actors' perform their various roles.

Whereas operating room (OR), as used in America, strikes me as unimaginative, at the very least. But maybe that was the intention? Mustn't needlessly frighten the patient, must we?

- Ken

I believe the term "Operating Theater" may have been in use in the US many many decades ago when it was a true theater. There would be a balcony in which medical students and other doctors could observe the procedure taking place on the floor below. In more recent times, film, video, and live transmission of surgical procedures from a smaller "room" has obviated the need for theater-type Operating Suites. Australia obviously has retained the use of that term.

Big thanks, srg rik (post #2 )! You're right, of course. Another Zity-er has forwarded me similar information from Wikipedia. Also, l can't be sure that 'operating theatre' is in fact still used in Australia - it may be just an impression l have retained.

My imagination was seized by the dramatics of the image of surgical 'theatre'. That may even have been a factor in my long-held medfet (and anaesthesia) fetishes. ?

- Ken

It is operating theatre here too.

I'm in the USA, and OT refers to "occupational therapy". Not sure what the equivalent is in Oz or the rest of the Anglophone world.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupational_therapy

In The Netherlands they use OK (operatie kamer), you can translate that to Operating Room.

I think the term operating theater originates from a time where these rooms had a gallery where students could watch the. procedure

Nowadays everything that happens in those rooms get videotaped for use in education and research and for documentation.