Surgeons send 'tweets' from operating room | Hacker News Reader

Surgeons send 'tweets' from operating room

edition.cnn.com

12 pointsswombat12 comments

Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney.

Why not write a journal article?

My guess is the masses will not read articles. While Twitter has not hit critical mass yet, it will at least reach a wider audience?

I for one don't read medical journals.

So let's say you have kidney cancer, and need to have surgery. Your doctor says he needs to remove your entire kidney. Is he really going to change his mind when you say, "I saw on Twitter that that's not true."

No. Probably not.

At least a journal article seems more legitimate, although I doubt anyone is going to risk their medical license on that either.

A journal article will be more legitimate, but if spreading the word is the point (I'm just guess it is one of the aim) then twittering is better. Like someone else commented, the good doctor could have done both.

Back to your example, at the very least, I would be reminded to seek a second opinion, assuming I believe what I had read to a minimal extent.

Name recognition/branding. I otherwise would have never heard of this Dr. Rogers. Now I've heard of him and I am probably more likely to think he is "with it". Not that this branding will ever help him much with me, but I think that is what is going on.

Personally, I'd prefer someone not be 'with it' whilst poking about my guts. Of the skills I'd be seeking in a surgeon, multi-tasking tweet-master is not among them.

Aren't brief audio-notes (or a full video) enough reference for composing a detailed account of the operation after-the-fact?

That's the problem with CNN links. Dig deeper, and you find that the chief resident (not the surgeon) was responsible for the tweets.

Why not write a journal article and broadcast on Twitter? This surgery doesn't seem to be groundbreaking research worthy of a new journal article; it's just that enough people didn't know about removing tumors without taking the entire kidney. By tweeting, they got noticed on Twitter, CNN and HN. A brilliant work of PR.

Full text link:

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/TECH/02/17/twitter.surgery/index...

It is definitely a step in the right direction for education. However, surgery is a very experiential type of learning so the true value is limited. If it could be integrated with a live video feed would increase medical value.

As far as a good way to get people to hear about their procedure, it is very effective. It got CNN and whoever followed it on twitter to hear about their procedure.

Medical vidcasts. http://www.or-live.com/index.videoChannel.cfm

They've got a Varicocele Surgery being broadcast live on February 24 at 7PM. http://www.or-live.com/bethisrael/2445/

For some reason, I'm thinking this is one small step towards a real-life The Truman Show. Maybe, it's the birth of Truman (how it was captured for TV).

Yeah, except this time, Truman will know he's being watched.

It's a little weird that we've somehow collectively chosen to embrace the 1984 vision of constant surveillance; throwing ourselves into it ahead of even the government's capacity.

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