Lights! Camera! Scalpel!

Webcasts combine the drama of a TV reality show and the usefulness of the Internet

It looks like a taping of ER. A surgeon stands over a patient, scalpel in hand, ready to perform a hi-tech spinal operation. He has a team of professionals supporting him8212;two anaesthesiologists, four nurses and an X-ray technician. Meanwhile, three men with broadcast video cameras dot the room, listening through earpieces as a producer barks orders. When the producer says 8220;cut8221; the cameras don8217;t stop. Instead, the doctor raises his scalpel8212;and makes a real-life incision.

This surgery was filmed last month for OR-Live.com, a website that was launched six years ago as a way for doctors to bone up on new techniques by logging on to watch their peers perform surgeries. But recently the site8217;s been attracting a completely different audience: patients who are curious about new procedures. The webcasts, which are aired live and later archived, combine the entertainment of TV it8217;s a cross between a doctor drama and a reality show with the usefulness of the Web. And they8217;re pulling in decent ratings. In the past year, webcast viewership more than doubled from 62,000 to 131,000 per week8212;60 percent of them consumers.

8220;I wanted to know what the doctors weren8217;t telling me,8221; says Chuck Elemendorf, who watched a surgery to treat a Chiari malformation, a brain anomaly his 9-year-old son has been diagnosed with.

Of course, even live webcasts don8217;t always tell the whole story. Both surgeons and patients are chosen to showcase optimal results8212;and they8217;re sponsored by medical-device manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. Founder Ross Joel compares the site8217;s funding to how PBS is produced companies who give grants get cited on air as 8220;sponsors8221;. Still, it can be off-putting to learn a spinal surgery was brought to you by 8220;AxiaLIF, the least invasive solution for lumbar fusion.8221;

Hospitals see the site as a good way to attract new patients8212;they can showcase star surgeons and introduce new procedures. 8220;The response has been phenomenal,8221; says Laurence Epstein, a cardiac surgeon who performed a catheter ablation procedure for OR-Live last year.

8220;I8217;ve had a number of patients come to me and when I start describing the surgery, they tell me, 8216;Oh, that8217;s why we8217;re here. We saw your webcast.8221;8217; OR-Live has scheduled 150 surgeries this year8212;some from Belgium and Germany8212;and will film more than 200 in 2007. Epstein, whose hospital is in talks with film crews to do similar projects on their own, says he believes webcasts of surgeries will become a common procedure for hospitals in the future. Stay tuned.

ELISE SOUKUP