With so many problems from botched surgeries you would think a patient would be able to request this.
In: Technology
The ‘surgeons find it distracting’ argument many people in this thread have made is both incorrect and shows little understanding of how modern surgery works.
In the vast majority of surgeries it is not only possible to record video and capture still images easily with no distractions, it is in fact very common – especially in minimally invasive procedures. So if a surgeon is telling you it can’t be done it’s because they don’t want your dad trying to bring his impossible to sterilise camcorder he got for Christmas in 1998 into a clinical environment (SOURCE: I work in medical tech).
Most surgeons will happily show you images or videos of your operation if you ask to see it. The issues arise when providing you with a copy of it – any images or videos taken are stored in a system called a PACS (scans and x-rays are stored here too), and contains DICOM metadata that doesn’t just relate to the patient but also has details of the clinicians and other key information – this is a globally used standard way of managing patient imaging and in some cases hospitals ban staff from any sort of medical imaging or photography that doesn’t conform to this standard.
Most PACS providers assume that the media will be stored and only used/accessed within the hospital as part of the patient record so provide no way to reliably scrub that metadata. The way data protection is handled in a medical setting is much more hardcore, and for good reason, which means the hospital will refuse to hand over copies to avoid legal issues.
It’s fascinating to me so many people saying cameras would create stress, put the focus on avoiding lawsuits, etc. but not seem to feel the same way for police bodycams.
I had one of my surgeries recorded. It was mostly just because I was curious, and my surgeon was 100% OK with it. If I recall correctly, it was his suggestion because of the complexity. And, I mean how many times do you get to watch surgeons reconfiguring your insides?
Who do you envision would record it? And on what device?
The hospital wouldn’t want to pay a staff member to film. An outsider can’t come to the OR to film. A tripod would be in the way in an emergency.
Also staff talk about random things during surgery- they wouldn’t want their private conversations recorded
Plenty of laparoscopic surgeries can be recorded. I take tons of photos during cases and occasionally video if it’s something interesting/cool. Plus many ORs have recording in the room during certain parts of the case (like the Time Out) to ensure facility compliance.
The reason that surgeries aren’t recorded as a standard of care likely owes to a combination of factors:
1. Data storage/maintenance
2. Difficulty recording — laparoscopic surgeries are easy but you can’t necessarily see a lot if you’re working an open case in the deep body spaces.
3. There’s no strong purpose. Medical malpractice has 2 components — deviation from standard of care **and** harm arising to the patient as a result of that deviation. Mistakes happen relatively commonly in the OR as surgeons are only human. These risks/complications should be disclosed to the patient as a part of informed consent in pre-op counseling. If the complications occur, you disclose them to the patient immediately after.
A good real world example of 3 is this: say I’m doing a gynecological surgery. The risks of this surgery include bleeding/hemorrhage, infection/abscess, and injury to the other pelvic organs. If I accidentally put a hole in the bowel, for example, and have a general surgeon come in to fix it and disclose it to the patient, this is just a risk of surgery. If I didn’t recognize the injury, or tried to repair it myself without the expertise of another surgeon, THEN I’d be getting into malpractice territory.
I work as an OR nurse. The hospital I work in created a whole new OR suite with many OR rooms. They put video cameras in every room. They wanted to use the video cameras to record every surgery. Every single one of those cameras is now pointed directly at the ceiling because all the surgeons refused to be filmed.
It would not be particularly distracting as others have said. Many surgeries are minimally invasive, where cameras are inserted into the body. These have video feeds to monitors, which you can get still frames and video from. The surgery would be no different from the point of view of the surgeon. Regular “open” surgeries would be harder. You couldn’t see anything from most of the room. Some OR lights above the table can have cameras in them, which would work somewhat well. But they are an expense most hospitals won’t pay to install. The big issues are storage, audio, and legal issues with protected patient info. Videos take up a lot of hard drive space. The equipment is not set up to store that video automatically, and hospitals again are not going to spend money on storage drives for every procedure. You *can* record to things like thumb drives. But, hospitals have strict policies about what can be recorded and how. They don’t want to risk HIPAA violations (in the U.S.) if a thumb drive is lost or patient info otherwise gets released. That’s probably the biggest reason it’s not typically done. Also, as your surgeon, I’m going to be much more focused on the surgery and caring for you than remembering to set up video recording
Video guy here. Lately I’ve been doing training videos, installing orthodontic appliances in people’s mouths. It’s very difficult to shoot properly, and the client’s blown away that I can do it. [I use an 8′ Kessler Crane](https://kesslercrane.com/products/kc-8-crane) among other things.
So how would you make video of surgeries, in a way that wouldn’t compromise safety, piss of the prima-donna surgeon, and be clear enough to show if any mistakes were made? Getting a video camera to look down inside incisions, hanging a camera over the table but having it low enough to properly frame, to clearly see procedures while lots of head/hands/towels/sponges are in the way? You’d only really do that if you *needed* a video of it, say for training or something.
My husband had knee surgery and received a dvd with the surgery which begins with the consultant saying “Welcome Mr. Demeanour to the resection of your right knee”. I have a friend who insists on sharing the video of his hip replacement. Friend was in Australia, husband in the UK. So this is definitely a thing.
1. It would increase costs, you now need a person and multiple cameras to record whats going on.
2. The average person would have no idea what they are even looking at in a video recording of a surgery and would make accusations of malpractice based on things they think are “wrong”.
3. It puts additional pressure on the surgeons/staff to do things that look good on video instead of actually being good for surgery. (Lets make a extra big long incision so the camera can see inside!)
4. A number of surgeries are emergencies, so there isn’t time to setup un-needed equipment.
Latest Answers