OTA

«You are one of my most valuable employees.» This sentence, uttered at a Christmas party nine years ago, accompanies OTA, the surgical assistant, through her days. In the routine that stretches between bad coffee, the strictly regulated procedures in the operating theatre with which the hospital counters the concentrated chaos of the world, and the after-work beer, she finds security and rhythm. OTA loves her work, lives her work, every day anew, despite shift work, understaffing and steep hierarchies. But her certainty that she is exactly where she should be begins to waver when her boss is no longer satisfied with her. Suddenly, nothing seems to go right anymore, no conversation flows anymore. Something has fallen out of sync and continues to swing further and further off course.

In OTA, Lisa Danulat takes a look behind the scenes of operating theatres, telling of a shortage of skilled workers, overload and cynicism – and at the same time of the tenderness and fragility of the people on and around the operating tables. Atmospheric, precise and with a keen sense of the humour in everyday life, OTA is an empathetic plea to repair the system that repairs people.