Brain surgery tweeted live by US hospital staff

GRAPHIC images and descriptions of a brain tumour patient’s surgery have been tweeted live by hospital staff.

Nursing staff tweeted surgeon Kim Dong’s every move on the social media site as he operated on a 21-year-old patient in Texas.

Dr Dong, of Houston’s Memorial Hermann Hospital, told how he decided on the move in a bid to educate patient’s about the complex procedure.

He said: “There’s a lot of mystery to people to as to what brain surgery is and people are very anxious and want to know what goes on in brain surgery like this.

“This was a detailed, real-time sequence of what happens in a brain surgery through all the stages.”

Viewers read about and saw pictures of the surgeon cutting open the patient’s skull and remove her tumour with the aid of a specialist fibre optic camera.

While he worked in the operating room on Wednesday his fellow team members documented every stage of the two-hour operation live outlining every step of what was happening.

Viewers could see graphic images of the surgery including images of the patient’s brain and the complex procedure to remove the benign tumour.

The patient had agreed to be broadcast but asked to remain anonymous. Doctors hope the surgery will eradicate severe seizures the young woman was having.

More than 15 million have watched the social media footage to date.

The same hospital tweeted the world’s first ever live tweeted open heart surgery in February. That operation has attracted more than 125 million online hits to date.