n. Soothing words used to calm or distract a patient who is awake during a surgical procedure.
2017
Verbicaine. Spoken anesthesia, as in talking a patient through a rough patch of surgery when they are awake.
2016
Many patients are anxious about anticipated procedural pain. Supportive verbal communication, including distraction and so-called “vocal local” or “verbicaine”, can play a role in reducing anxiety and pain.
2014
The best tool providers have for pain control is "verbicaine" or a "vocal local," good counseling, and calm reassurance throughout the procedure.
1996 (earliest)
For example, in order to replace general anesthesia with the use of non-narcotic analgesics and only local anesthesia for MVA, all members of the PAC team—not just the physicians—needed to be skilled in explaining MVA to the patient and be able to provide "vocal local" or "verbacaine" during the procedure.
This technique is also known as a vocal local (1996) where, as you know from watching medical dramas, "local" refers to an anaesthetic that acts upon a limited area, and verbal anaesthesia (1998) or verbal anaesthetic (1998).