Sunnybrook Hospital Broadcasts Open Heart Surgery Live on Twitter

On Thursday, February 20, 2014, Sunnybrook Hospital allowed the world to watch a coronary artery bypass graft, in real-time, by “live-tweeting” the procedure on Twitter. The live-tweets included photos, short videos, and short messages that explained the procedure and provided heart health information.

So why did Sunnybrook want to Live-tweet open heart surgery?

The surgery was be led by Dr. Gideon Cohen, and a team of experts from Sunnybrook’s Schulich Heart Centre.  The tweeting was done by the Sunnybrook communications team and a University of Toronto medical resident, who was on hand to explain the surgery and answer questions.

People were able to follow along by viewing the Sunnybrook Twitter profile, or following the hashtag #SBheart

We think Sunnybrook did was AMAZING!! Educating so many people in this innovative way and getting people talking about cardiac health is a fantastic way to save lives.

We certainly learned a lot today, and we’re sure everyone else did too. Thanks so much, Sunnybrook! This was one of the best live tweeting sessions we’ve followed along with!

Here is a summary of the tweets. A word of caution, these are real pictures and videos of a real cardiac surgery. If that sort of thing makes you queazy, then just take our work for it- It was pretty cool!!