Seventies icon Carly Simon helps to put her surgeon friend's patients at ease as they prepare to go under the knife by serenading them in the operating room.

The You're So Vain singer admits she often accompanies laparoscopic surgeon Richard Koehler when he conducts procedures at a hospital in Plymouth, Massachusetts as she is intrigued by the medical marvels.

And Simon, who rarely performs in concert due to her crippling stagefright, even accepts song requests during the keyhole surgery.

She tells the New York Post, "One of them asked for Haven't Got Time for the Pain. I told them how much fun it was, and that I was going to be holding their hand when they woke up, too.

"And then I watched the surgery and everybody thought that I was going to be grossed out and have to be taken from the room on a stretcher. I wasn't at all. I was fascinated by it."

But she will be absent from the operating room for several weeks next year (10) when she embarks on a tour of Europe - for the first time in her 38-year career. (c) WENN