Live-Tweeting Surgery

Twitter is still on the rise and in the news daily. A lot of people in our WEGO Health community use Twitter (maybe you've attended one of the Twitter Power Tools events WEGO Health has hosted?). Even beyond our community of health activists, others involved in the health community are turning to Twitter for a way to spread awareness for a cause, meet others who have similar interests or illnesses, and sharing great resources. Micro-blogging is a great way to say a lot in a small space. The brevity makes links, videos, ideas, photos, and news spread to many people very quickly.

Maybe you read Marie's forum discussion on Virtual Medicine, and considered the pros and cons of having doctors appointments via the web from the comforts of your own home. (If you haven't seen this discussion, check it out - it's really thought-provoking, especially if you're someone who is an internet-lover or just curious about new trends and technologies.)

Well, I just read an article on NY Times Well Blog about a team from Children’s Mercy Hospital in Missouri that tweeted during surgery this week. The goal of Live-Tweeting was to alert family members back home about the progress of the procedures. The patient was a 10-year-old from Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia, who suffered severe neck burns in a fireworks accident 6 months ago. "The burns had caused his skin to contract...surgery was needed to place skin expanders so the neck tissue could continue to grow, giving the boy a normal range of motion. He was accompanied on the trip by his mother and younger sister, but the child’s father and other family members had to stay in Mongolia."

Did the surgeon have one hand on the keyboard and one on a scalpel? No. Don't worry - "while the hospital’s chief of plastic surgery, Dr. Viirender Singhal, operated, the public information officer, Sherry D. Gibbs, posted live updates on Twitter from the operating room." Anyone who was "following" the hospital's Twitter feed could read the tweets as Gibbs posted them. And before this happened, the family gave her permission to make all the updates public. Here are some of the tweets sent from the operating room:

•Dr. Singhal is scrubbing in to prepare for the surgery

•So far, Dr. Singhal has made an incision on 1 side of the patient’s neck, & the team is preparing the tissue expanders for insertion.

•Dr. is pleased with the insertion of the 1st expander. He’s starting on the 2nd incision now

•Dr. requested another suture for 2nd incision, and is preparing to insert the expander.

•By inflating the expanders over time, new skin will continue to stretch and grow.

•at end of the expansion there will be lots of extra tissue to allow Dr. to perform plastic surgery to reconstruct the skin defect.

•Our patient is doing great. It’s almost over mom. 2nd incision is done and closed up. Dr. Singhal starting on the 3rd one now."

During surgery, nurses usually go to the waiting room and check in with the family a few times. But instead of this, the patient's mother "sat next to a computer monitor waiting for the Twitter updates." Interesting, right? Wouldn't it just be easier to use the phone or have someone go out there in person?

Ms. Gibbs, the tweeter, "said even the surgeon, who was initially skeptical about the idea, found that dictating the Twitter updates in real time was easier than taking phone calls from nurses to update the family on the boy’s condition. He also noted that the child’s mother was less stressed when he greeted her after the operation."

What do you think of this idea? If you were a family member in this scenario would you want to be alerted via twitter about his condition? Would you mind the semi-impersonal Twitter approach? Would you be opposed to having details spread publicly to anyone following the hospital's twitterfeed? What if you were the patient?

I think this is a really interesting way to go about things. During surgery many family members and friends sit anxious and worried about what's happening. Some would rather not know what the logistics of the procedure are - but many want to know exactly what's happening when it's happening.

But don't worry - livetweeting isn't going to be used for everything. "Ms. Gibbs said the frequent Twitter updates wouldn’t necessarily work for lengthy surgeries, and the hospital doesn’t have the staff to “tweet” every surgery in real time. In addition, had complications emerged, she would have been told to leave the operating room, and the tweets would have ended. Future tweets from the operating room will be decided on a case-by-case basis, she said."

What cases do you think would be great to try this surgery-tweeting? What cases would be inappropriate? Do you ever livetweet events in your life? Are there any other ways that you think Twitter could benefit the health community or doctors and hospitals?


The hospitals Twitter feed is ChildrensMercy, and you can find all the updates on the recent surgery at #cmhor. It seems like a lot of Twitter users are interested in what the hospital did and eagerly Retweeting (RT) the link to their followers.