Answer
In the Name of Allah, Most Gracious, Most Merciful.
All praise and thanks are due to Allah, and peace and blessings be upon His Messenger.
In this fatwa:
If you are a surgeon doing surgery, you should not break the fast by eating or drinking – if doing so may jeopardize the procedure.
In responding to your question, Sheikh Ahmad Kutty, a senior lecturer and an Islamic scholar at the Islamic Institute of Toronto, Ontario, Canada, states:
If you are a surgeon doing surgery, you should not break the fast by eating or drinking – if doing so may jeopardize the procedure.
However, it would be best if you still broke the fast by formulating the intention in your mind to break it. You should then follow it up later by eating or drinking as soon as you can.
However, if you can sip water without any interference with the procedure, you should do so.
Saving lives is one of the noblest of deeds in Islam; as such, your work merits numerous rewards. So, if you need to postpone iftar to do so, it does not in any way diminish your rewards for fasting as saving lives has precedence – since it is one of the fundamental objectives of the Shariah.
Almighty Allah knows best.