62 Year Old Patient Dies During Live Telecast Of Surgery At AIIMS
A 23rd annual conference of Association for Study of the Liver, hosted jointly AIIMS and the Army Research & Referral Hospital was held in Delhi, a live surgery workshop was conducted on July 31 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS). As a part of the workshop a live surgery was being broad casted to a hall full of surgeons.
A 62-year-old patient died when he was being operated upon by a Japanese surgeon as part of a live surgery workshop. There were allegations of negligence on the part of the AIIMS. According to the sources,The patient was a Shobha Ram, Honda’s labourer who was suffering from liver cirrhosis after a hepatitis B infection. Ram was transferred to AIIMS from GB Pant Hospital which has a reputed GI surgery facility headed by Dr Anil Agarwal.
Patient dies after AIIMS live surgery workshop:
The surgery was started at 9am, “During the course of the surgery, there was bleeding, which is a known complication of the procedure. The procedure was converted to an open procedure and all measures were taken to control the bleeding. After controlling it, the patient was shifted to the ICU. The total surgical procedure lasted for about nine hours. Unfortunately, because of the underlying liver disease he didn’t do well and succumbed at 11.30 pm,” told the AIIMS statement.
This was entirely new in laproscopic surgery having an audience for a surgery. As this detailed piece on live telecast by Slate noted, it’s been for the first time in surgeries where an audience stood around to watch a surgeon and medical students are present in operation theatres to study techniques they’ve learnt about.
This has become a lot easier in laparoscopic surgeries since the use of a camera is involved anyway, it becomes much easier. In May 2014, a UK surgeon operated and had the surgery telecast live through Google Glass, even as students and other doctors could ask him questions. The Telegraph report pointed out that 90 percent of the students who watched the live broadcast even wanted such telecasts to be part of the teaching process.