The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, OH– Periscope (a Twitter company) allows users to view the world through another person’s eyes. And it is quickly becoming one of the most unique ways to virtually experience an event or transport yourself to a place across the globe. One of the biggest proponents of this latest social networking platform, is Dr. Timothy Miller, an orthopedic surgeon at The Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center. Dr. Miller isn’t just an early adopter of this new channel, he’s a believer that this app may hold the future of medical education. A future that doesn’t have to be read or recorded.
“This is an opportunity for medical education to go beyond the classroom,” Miller said, particularly in this age of restricted hours for students and residents. While residents are already on duty as much as 80 hours a week, Miller believes that even established physicians could learn more from watching video on their off days.
The patient that Dr. Miller conducted the Periscope operation on gave full consent and the camera never showed the patient’s face.
Roughly 170 viewers jumped in an out of the broadcast during the live stream that lasted a total of 40 minutes. And 800 users watched the replay that Periscope keeps live for 24 hours after an event. These viewers ranged from healthcare professionals that don’t get the opportunity to experience many live operations, to the patient’s family members sitting outside in the waiting room.
Will Periscope finish what Google Glass started in the operating room? It certainly adds that extra bit of real-world value that even live-feed social networking platforms like Twitter simply can’t offer. Periscope will be on our radar for the rest of 2015 and well into 2016 as more and more services begin to move their offerings into the live streaming arena.
