Just when you think you saw everything on the internet, something really cool comes along. I know that this is probably not the first time that a live surgery was done on the internet. But, Swedish Medical Center did something really interesting today in that they broadcast a live knee surgery - really. I'm not kidding, this video may be squemish for some people out there (especially the video above about 13 minutes in).
And, the multiple camera angles from the studio to the operating room wide shot to the knee close up shot was cool as well. And, if you're curious, they had over 4,000 views of the video for the entire broadcast (I believe), and when I was on there were over 200 live viewers at the same time. (Want to apologize up front for the ad you'll see when you hit play above)
The video above is part three of the broadcast which lasted about SIX hours today. I encourage you to check out their very informative webpage which not only has the other parts of this long video session, but also they had valuable information about the robot assisted knee surgery along with biographies of the surgeons.
The social media angle was also very cool to experience in real time. The twitter stream was active with the hashtag #LiveKneeSurgery - Something that was also great (but doesn't always happen in broadcasts like this) was the fact that they actually took questions from the twitter audience as well. And, even for me, as a physician, there were some tough questions thrown out there.
Finally, what impressed me the most was the fact that physicians were the hosts for this entire webcast. I think this really added tremendous credibility. And, they did a great job for this entire 5-6 hour broadcast. I have been known to do some live podcasts before, and I tire out at about an hour. But, they did a great job of keeping the audience interested and cycling in some of their questions along the way. Well done Swedish!