Social Networking History Made: Open Heart Surgery Tweeted Live

Now this is truly something. We have all seen people Tweet and post to Facebook like it was their last day alive and were trying to leave their legacy on social media. Every burp, chore and random thought is put up for the entire world to see. Now doctors at Houston’s Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital are changing the world of social networking (for the better) by live tweeting during a patient’s open-heart surgery.

Dr. Michael Macris was the operating surgeon while his colleague, Dr. Paresh Patel, used the hospital’s Twitter handle @houstonhospital to send out regular tweets, photos, and videos from a camera worn on Dr. Macris’s head during the 2.5 hour procedure. The 57-year old patient underwent a double-coronary bypass and is doing well.

This type of tweeting will revolutionize the social media network. Think of how many times you have sat for hours in a hospital waiting room just hoping a loved one of yours would make it through surgery alive. Just starring at the doors to the operating room silently begging for someone to come through it and give you good news. If this is able to catch on, you will have access to regular updates throughout the surgery, giving you and others much needed peace of mind.

Doctor Macris agreed that this was a positive move in the realm of social media telling Mashable “I would predict that similar things start happening more and more. Social media will be taken much more seriously by academia. It’s an incredibly powerful way to communicate with people. So to say that I think we’ll see more and more things like this would be a very easy prediction to make.”

The full article and insights from the staff involved is available here.

 

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