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Comment by jrockway | Hacker News Reader

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?

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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...

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.

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