Booms can be a wonderful help or a horrible hindrance. Done right, they are marvels of modern efficiency, gleaming pendants of gas, power and data that stow surgical equipment on shelves and suspend lights and flat-panel monitors on arms that are easy to spin no matter the patient's position. Done wrong, they are bulky, obtrusive impediments to surgical efficiency, permanent reminders of poor planning dangling from the ceiling, their criss-crossed arms crashing into one another, hard to maneuver and lacking in reach, failing on their promise to deliver what you need when you need it.