Anatomy Scandal: The Game Operation Has Been Teaching Children Lies for Decades

Post created by Emily and Cameron

Anyone remember playing the game Operation? I (Emily) frequently get flashbacks of the traumatic game, where my seven-year-old hands are shaking in fear, trying carefully to remove the plastic objects from the chubby little boy to avoid hearing the horrible buzzing noise that would indicate my compete failure.

What a stressful memory we just unlocked in your brain! However, we are not here to write about the terrors and traumas this game has brought many children, but rather we want to point out three gross inadequacies that this game has been plaguing the minds of children with since 1965.

Let’s start with the first, and arguably most concerning problem.

1. The patient is awake!

Is anyone not concerned that our poor patient is AWAKE? And his facial expression isn’t too happy about it. Some anesthesiologist really messed up – either he didn’t administer enough anesthetics, or he forgot to put him under altogether! If this was a real operation, the number of lawsuits that would be filed for this mistake would be insane. If we want our children to be properly educated about medicine, the patient should be soundly asleep and feeling no pain.

2. What kind of bones are those?

I understand that this is a game for children, but shouldn’t we at least make the body parts realistic? Now, children will grow up believing that they have a “wrenched ankle”, a “charlie horse”, “spare ribs”, or “butterflies in the stomach”. Outrageous! This game would be much more improved if it included real body parts, such as a femur, rib, collarbone, or humerus. Even still, most surgeries don’t involve the actual removal of bones, but rather the fixing of damaged organs. This game would go above and beyond if it included things like a damaged aorta, ruptured spleen, or a hernia. So much more fun for the children!

3. Unrealistic consequences

In this game, your operation is deemed to be “failed” if you touch anything other than the object you’re trying to remove. If you accidentally touch a wall, then the patient’s red nose will buzz and light up in distress. Clearly, this is all wrong. In real life, failure to do the operation correctly would result in drastic blood loss, a dropping blood pressure, and even death! Children should know that medical procedures are much more high stakes than simple a buzzing noise.

These are only three of the main problems we had with the game. Of course, there were many others, such as why the patient is completely naked, but those are of lesser importance. Overall, we believe that this game has great potential to teach children the realities of surgery and medicine. However, this monstrosity of a game is currently riddled with deception and false information. Action must be taken immediately to change the game or get rid of it altogether, before another naïve child falls victim to its lies.

(Disclaimer: we don’t actually hate this game)