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Spine Surgery Today, Open Operating Theatre initiate collaboration to make spine surgery videos more accessible
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Spine Surgery Today and Open Operating Theatre, which is a website that presents thematically complex spine surgery and standard spine surgery in close cooperation with the European Spine Journal, announced a collaboration between the entities that will begin in July. Through the collaboration, both entities will contribute videos from their extensive collections so spine surgeons can view different surgical techniques being performed, learn about spine research that has been conducted, or hear and view Master Lectures, symposia or presentations.
Open Operating Theatre (OOT), which was established in 2005, is owned by MEM Media Foundation and based in Bern, Switzerland. It has developed an extensive online surgical video library. Through the collaboration, some of the library’s collection will be available at no charge via the Spine Surgery Today website Healio.com/Spine.
Likewise, the collaboration will result in a selection of videos that were produced by the Spine Surgery Today staff housed at the OOT website www.oot-esj.com.
Max Aebi
Max Aebi, MD, DHC, FRCSC, a Deputy Editor of European Spine Journal for web-based learning and publishing, originally envisioned OOT as an additional form of learning technology.
“I think you have to offer more in a journal than just papers,” he told Spine Surgery Today.
Most of the OOT videos are specifically structured and typically include an introduction, purpose for the video and a case presentation. This is followed by an entire surgical film that shows the surgical technique used and the result, including postoperative radiographs, according to Aebi.
“We have films about the same surgical procedures by different surgeons and most of our surgeons are top-flight surgeons in Europe, but also some in the United States,” Aebi said.
OOT initiated the collaboration with Spine Surgery Today after the OOT staff noticed the growing collection of short videos at Healio.com/Spine, which are typically interviews about research results and trends in the spine field done with orthopaedic and neurological surgeons who are focused on spine.
“Spine Surgery Today has something we do not have and we have something it does not have. It is nice synergy to work together,” Aebi said.
Among the OOT videos scheduled to be viewable via Healio.com/Spine as part of the collaboration are one on French door laminoplasty for cervical spondylotic myelopathy (CSM) with Yann Philippe Charles, MD, of Strasbourg, France, and one on C4 anterior corpectomy with fusion for CSM with Ibrahim Obeid, MD, of Bordeaux, France. – by Susan M. Rapp