RECORDING SURGERY

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If you were faced with having heart surgery, would you want your doctor to capture images of your heart so you can see your organ first hand?

“Nothing tells the story like a picture, and for them to actually see what that problem was, the obstructed valve that was making it hard for them to breathe or the obstructed coronary artery that was causing them chest pain-- when you finally see the picture of it, it becomes very real and there’s a new level of understanding that people can reach,” says Dr. Duke Cameron, professor of cardiac surgery at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

For the past few years Dr. Cameron has made an effort in the operating room to photograph his patients’ hearts.

“It’s tremendously valuable to the cardiologists who do the evaluations of the patients and make diagnosis and then refer the patient for the surgery, the cardiologist rarely gets to see the problem, he sees an x-ray, he hears a murmur, but he never sees the valve. For me to be able to send a picture back and say, look this is what you heard with your stethoscope—I find they appreciate that,” says Dr. Cameron.

Dr. Cameron believes that as technology continues to rapidly advance, photographing all different types of surgeries will become more and more popular. “Plastic surgeons in particular are way ahead of us, they’ve always brought cameras to the operating room and continue to do and have used the digital photography even more so than cardiac surgeons and yes many other surgical specialties will do this.”

The digital images also serve as an invaluable teaching tool for residents.
“The more we can share information about the diseases, the better it helps us take care of the patient,” says Dr. Cameron.

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