Budapest Post

Cum Deo pro Patria et Libertate
Budapest, Europe and world news

Doctors are turning to YouTube to learn how to do surgical procedures, but there’s no quality control

Doctors are turning to YouTube to learn how to do surgical procedures, but there’s no quality control

Tens of thousands of surgery-related videos are on YouTube, and the number keeps climbing every year. Some doctors say that medical students and residents rely on YouTube to fill in gaps in their training. For that reason, some medical experts are calling for better vetting and curation of the content.

When Dr. Justin Barad was a medical resident, he would often encounter a problem he’d never managed or be asked to use a device without much training.

So he’d turn to YouTube.
Barad, who completed his surgical training at UCLA in 2015, said YouTube has become a fixture of medical education. He’d often get prepped by watching a video before a procedure. Sometimes he’d even open a YouTube video in the operating theater when confronted with a particularly challenging surgery or unexpected complication.

“I don’t know a surgeon who hasn’t had a similar experience,” said Barad, who has now started a surgical training company called Osso VR.

CNBC found tens of thousands of videos showing a wide variety of medical procedures on the Google-owned video platform, some of them hovering around a million views. People have livestreamed giving birth and broadcast their face-lifts. One video, which shows the removal of a dense, white cataract, has gone somewhat viral and now has more than 1.7 million views. Others seem to have found crossover appeal with nonmedical viewers, such as a video from the U.K.-based group Audiology Associates showing a weirdly satisfying removal of a giant glob of earwax.

Doctors are uploading these videos to market themselves or to help others in the field, and the amount is growing by leaps and bounds. Researchers in January found more than 20,000 videos related to prostate surgery alone, compared with just 500 videos in 2009.

The videos are a particular boon for doctors in training. When the University of Iowa surveyed its surgeons, including its fourth-year medical students and residents, it found that YouTube was the most-used video source for surgical preparation by far.

But residents and medical students are not the only ones tuning in. Experienced doctors, like Stanford Hospital’s vascular surgeon Dr. Oliver Aalami said he turned to YouTube recently ahead of a particularly difficult exposure.

“It was helpful, but I kept thinking that some of these videos should be verified,” he said, “A bit like Twitter and its blue badges.”


The quality conundrum


There’s one problem with this practice that will be familiar to anybody who’s searched YouTube for tips on more mundane tasks like household repairs. How can doctors tell which videos are valid and which contain bogus information?

For instance, one recent study found more than 68,000 videos associated with a common procedure known as a distal radius fracture immobilization. The researchers evaluated the content for their technical skill demonstrated and educational skill, and created a score. Only 16 of the videos even met basic criteria, including whether they were performed by a health-care professional or institution. Among those, the scores were mixed. In several cases, the credentials of the person performing the procedure could not be identified at all.

Even more concerning, studies are finding that the YouTube algorithm is highly ranking videos where the technique isn’t optimal. A group of researchers found that for a surgical technique called a laparoscopic cholecystectomy, about half the videos showed unsafe maneuvers.



Medical experts say this content hasn’t been particularly well curated, in part because it’s an expensive process. Massive-scale internet platforms like YouTube limit expenses by stressing that they are a platform with some basic rules, and they don’t vet or add editorial notes to content. YouTube doesn’t claim to be accredited for medical education, and therefore can surface content based on popularity and not on quality.

YouTube did not return a request for comment about its surgical content. Google Health declined to comment.

One solution would be paying a group of doctors to do the work of vetting surgical videos, suggests Dr. Joshua Landy, a Canadian physician who developed an Instagram-like service for doctors called Figure 1. “You’d need to be experienced to distinguish between the surgeries done properly and the technique is the most up-to-date and safe,” he said.

For patients watching the surgeries to get a sense for what happens once they go under, that kind of heavy-handed curation might not be necessary. But it’s a pressing need for inexperienced physicians, who rely on the videos to fill gaps in their medical education before they perform the procedures.

“Seeing cases is what makes you better at medicine because there’s always unusual things you’ll have to navigate,” said Landy. “So many doctors will watch these videos over and over again for thousands of hours.”

Google seems to be aware of the problem. But so far, the company has only made some small steps to provide some rules around graphic medical videos. Those uploading the videos must share descriptive titles, so users know what they’re in for, and the purpose must be to educate rather than to offend or surprise a viewer. One thing that’s not allowed, for instance, is footage from a procedure featuring open wounds where there’s no clear explanation to viewers.

But the company might deviate from its hands-off policy to do more in the coming months. Google’s vice president of health, David Feinberg, noted at a recent medical conference in the fall that a lot of surgeons are flocking to YouTube. He implied, without sharing specifics, that his team would look to do a better job of managing the content as part of its broader focus on combating health misinformation across Google.

Medical experts say they’re more than willing to work with YouTube to help curate medical content.

Many academic medical centers, notes Jefferson Health’s chief executive Dr. Stephen Klasko, are still using the same, age-old methods to train doctors and have not evolved for the digital age.

“We recognize that technology will transform health care, but what member of any medical school faculty understands things like coding or social media at the level of their students?” he said.



Klasko sees potential for YouTube in medical training. Moreover, he notes, surgeons are increasingly being asked to use sophisticated hardware that requires a lot of additional training. One particularly popular type of content on YouTube is an instruction manual for Intuitive’s da Vinci surgical robots, which can take months of practice to master. (This one, on how to suture a grape with a da Vinci, is particularly special.)

“These surgical robotics companies will go out of the way to credential people quickly,” said Klasko. “But it’s a tough skill to pick up.”

In the interim, some doctors, like Jefferson Health’s chief medical social media officer, Dr. Austin Chiang, who works for Klasko, recommend that their peers check whether a video is associated with a well-regarded hospital or medical society before they watch it or recommend it to others.

In the long run, he said, YouTube should promote this content over others. “One thing Google could do tomorrow is partner with these official societies,” he said.

AI Disclaimer: An advanced artificial intelligence (AI) system generated the content of this page on its own. This innovative technology conducts extensive research from a variety of reliable sources, performs rigorous fact-checking and verification, cleans up and balances biased or manipulated content, and presents a minimal factual summary that is just enough yet essential for you to function as an informed and educated citizen. Please keep in mind, however, that this system is an evolving technology, and as a result, the article may contain accidental inaccuracies or errors. We urge you to help us improve our site by reporting any inaccuracies you find using the "Contact Us" link at the bottom of this page. Your helpful feedback helps us improve our system and deliver more precise content. When you find an article of interest here, please look for the full and extensive coverage of this topic in traditional news sources, as they are written by professional journalists that we try to support, not replace. We appreciate your understanding and assistance.
Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
IMF Upgrades Global Growth Forecast as Weaker Dollar Supports Outlook
House Republicans Move to Defund OECD Over Global Tax Dispute
France Opens Criminal Investigation into X Over Algorithm Manipulation Allegations
Trump Steamrolls EU in Landmark Trade Win: US–EU Trade Deal Imposes 15% Tariff on European Imports
ChatGPT CEO Sam Altman says people share personal info with ChatGPT but don’t know chats can be used as court evidence in legal cases.
Intel Reports Revenue Beats but Sees 81% Rise in Losses
Politics is a good business: Barack Obama’s Reported Net Worth Growth, 1990–2025
UN's Top Court Declares Environmental Protection a Legal Obligation Under International Law
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
President Trump Diagnosed with Chronic Venous Insufficiency After Leg Swelling
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
Tulsi Gabbard Unveils Evidence Alleging Political Manipulation of Intelligence During Trump Administration
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Trump Announces Coca-Cola to Shift to Cane Sugar in U.S. Production
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
Moonshot AI Unveils Kimi K2: A New Open-Source AI Model
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
Nvidia Becomes World’s First Four‑Trillion‑Dollar Company Amid AI Boom
EU Delays Retaliatory Tariffs Amid New U.S. Threats on Imports
Trump Proposes Supplying Arms to Ukraine Through NATO Allies
US Opens First Rare Earth Mine in Over 70 Years in Wyoming
Bitcoin Reaches New Milestone of $116,000
Severe Heatwave Claims 2,300 Lives Across Europe
Declining Beer Consumption Signals Cultural Shift in Germany
Emails Leaked: How Passenger Luggage Became a Side Income for Airport Workers
Polish MEP: “Dear Leftists - China is laughing at you, Russia is laughing, India is laughing”
Western Europe Records Hottest June on Record
BRICS Expands Membership with Indonesia and Ten New Partner Countries
Elon Musk Founds a Party Following a Poll on X: "You Wanted It – You Got It!"
China’s Central Bank Consults European Peers on Low-Rate Strategies
France Requests Airlines to Cut Flights at Paris Airports Amid Planned Air Traffic Controller Strike
Poland Implements Border Checks Amid Growing Migration Tensions
Emirates Airline Expands Market Share with New $20 Million Campaign
Amazon Reaches Milestone with Deployment of One Millionth Robot
Yulia Putintseva Calls for Spectator Ejection at Wimbledon Over Safety Concerns
House Oversight Committee Subpoenas Former Jill Biden Aide Amid Investigation into Alleged Concealment of President Biden's Cognitive Health
×