Advanced auditory displays and head-mounted displays: advantages and disadvantages for monitoring by the distracted anesthesiologist.

Background: In a full-scale anesthesia simulator study we examined the relative effectiveness of advanced auditory displays for respiratory and blood pressure monitoring and of head-mounted displays (HMDs) as supplements to standard intraoperative monitoring.

Methods: Participants were 16 residents and attendings. While performing a reading-based distractor task, participants supervised the activities of a resident (an actor) who they were told was junior to them.