Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » New from iTunes - endoscopy!

March 28, 2006 | Comments: (0)

New from iTunes - endoscopy!

TAGS: Apple

Podcasts and viral videos are all the rage these days, what with the explosion of iPods that can play video and the enduring soul death of cubicles. But let's face it -- watching Piper the Cat survive that 80 foot fall only gets you so far -- and I don't care how long your subway ride is!

But fear not, lonely cubizen. Karl Storz Endoscopy-America is here to help, with full color podcasts of "actual surgeries performed at leading medical centers around the world." Hey man, who needs Piper the Cat falling out of a tree, when you can zone out to the "Imperforate Anus Pull-Through Procedure,"? For real -- check it out.

According to the press release, the company is offering three surgeries in the first series of podcasts: a pediatric laparoscopic Nissen fundoplication, a pediatric video-assisted thoracoscopy lung resection, and the *ahem* aforementioned pull-through procedure. The operations are all performed by Dr. Steven Rothenberg, M.D. Chief of Pediatric Surgery at The mother and Child Hospital at Presbyterian/St. Luke's Medical Center in Denver -- so pay attention med nerds!!!

Joking aside, this is really a cool idea, and right in line with decisions by universities like Stanford and MIT to offer up their content as podcasts, whether through iTunes or not.

For medical schools that must comply with the miserly 80 hour per week (boo hoo hoo) cap on residents work schedules, the videos offer another way to reach students, according to Eugene Lucas, who's a marketing manager at Karl Storz.

As for the question of whether your seat-mate is up for watching a lung resection on the way to work, well...that's a problem for another day.

pfr

Posted by Paul Roberts on March 28, 2006 01:12 PM

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