With Google Glass no longer around for gadget-loving surgeons to record POV procedures, Snapchat’s camera-equipped Spectacles are starting to gain some attention in the medical field instead.
Take surgeon Shafi Ahmed. Keen to share a routine hernia op with his students but aware that having a large crowd of people in the operating theater probably wasn’t a good idea, the London-based doc chose instead to don a pair of the recently launched $130 specs to record the operation.
Uploaded automatically to Snapchat, and later put on YouTube, the video (below) shows the procedure from start to finish, with Ahmed explaining his handiwork as he proceeds.
You may be wondering how he was able to make the video when the specs only record in 10-second bursts. Well, it turns out this actually aids the flow of the video, breaking it into segments, with Ahmed offering a short explanation at the start of each new clip. “It’s like you’re presenting a recipe, you’re training people in a structured way,” he told Time. And with Ahmed’s hands understandably busy during the operation, an assistant kindly pressed the button 0n the specs to begin each recording.
The British surgeon, who works at the London Independent Hospital, told Time he’s always been interested in how wearables can be used in the clinical workspace for both practice and education.
More than 200 medical students watched the tutorial in the 24 hours after the video landed on Ahmed’s Snapchat account, with thousands more people heading to YouTube to watch it.
We assume the patient granted Ahmed permission to record the video, though we’d like to have seen his reaction when the surgeon pulled the fancy-looking shades from his pocket and explained that he wanted to wear them while he worked.
Ahmed clearly loves his tech. Earlier this year he used a 360-degree camera rig fixed above the operating table to capture the entirety of a cancer operation, capturing it in 4K and live-streaming it globally in VR.
Interested in watching Ahmed’s surgery as seen through Snapchat’s Spectacles? You can check it out below, though if you’re a little squeamish it’s probably best you skip back to DT’s homepage instead.
