Can 'operation' be accepted? [closed]

This is a comprehension cloze question for 11 year olds:

His only hope for cure was a bone marrow transplant. His brother was chosen to donate some of his bone marrow. The ________ would take place in the States.

Was told that 'transplant' and 'procedure' can be accepted but 'operation' cannot because patient won't be cut.

Is it really so?

Solution 1:

The relevant definition of operation in Merriam-Webster's Eleventh Collegiate Dictionary (2003) doesn't mention cutting as a prerequisite:

operation n ... 4 : a procedure performed on a living body usu. with instruments esp. for the repair of damage or the restoration of health

Under the Eleventh Collegiate's definition, a bone marrow transplant would certainly be an operation; in fact, it might be viewed as two operations—one on the donor and one on the recipient. Any more-precise notion of the meaning of operation as a medical term of art involves a more sophisticated understanding of the term than Merriam-Webster seems to possess, and I think it is asking a lot of an eleven-year-old to be expected to possess it.

This is not to say that the operation in question may not also be characterized as a procedure.

Solution 2:

Eh, kinda.

If these were all given as multiple choice answers,

A. Transplant B. Procedure C. Operation D. [Sth Obviously Wrong]

then—having just looked up what actually occurs during a bone marrow transplant—B is the best answer. A isn't wrong but repeats the word too quickly to sound as good as a synonym. C is what I would've chosen, based on my misunderstanding that marrow was actually transplanted from a bone in one person to a bone in another. As is, apparently the only thing they do is extract marrow through a long needle and then inject it into the recipient's bloodstream, waiting weeks for it to find its way to some bone and start doing something useful. That really does comport better with procedure than operation, although operation is not actually synonymous with surgery and it's a ridiculously fine point to make with 11-year-old ESL students, unless it's a premed magnet program for Doogie Howser clones.