Anyone who has ever sat waiting to hear the outcome of a loved one’s surgery will know the anguish and the worry the wait can bring. Not for Joe Cleary though, who sat in the waiting room and followed the progress of his mother’s op on his laptop.
Monna Cleary was undergoing a hysterectomy at St Luke’s hospital in Iowa and had previously given permission for the hospital spokeswoman; Sarah Corizzo to post regular updates to the micro-blogging site Twitter reported the Washington post.
This meant that Joe could follow exactly what was going on as it was happening. “It is real time information instead of sitting and not knowing in the waiting room,” said Cleary’s son Joe, after his mother’s surgery on Monday.
Why would the hospital want to do this?
They claim they did it primarily for educational purposes and to raise the profile of the hospital as Corizzo tweeted not only about the progress of the operation but also about the causes and symptoms of the condition that could lead to the need for surgery.
However, for Joe Cleary and his family receiving the tweets on the laptop made all the difference to their waiting time.
“It made the time go by,” said Cleary, who had his brother, two sisters and a sister in law with him at the time and who all felt it was a “positive experience”.
Corizzo sent more than 300 tweets from a computer located just outside the operating room’s sterile space.
On Twitter almost 700 people followed the progress of the op with eight of them asking questions about the procedure of the op and one member of Cleary’s family who tweeted about how fascinating it was to follow the surgery.
“A lot of people would like to go into the operating room and see what happens but don’t want all the visuals and stuff,” said Laura Rainey, another hospital spokeswoman.
“This is a more gentle way to help inform patients and consumers.”
Quite! There’s no doubt that it could reassure the family concerned that all was going according to plan. However, what happens if something goes wrong?
Dr. Jerry Rozeboom, the surgeon carrying out Monna Cleary’s op, said that no restrictions would be placed on what could be included in the tweets, but that if it proved to be a distraction or there were any complications the tweeting would stop.
Now that would be worrying.
.
“She’s doing great. She’ll see you soon.” Corriza tweeted when the op was over.
Thank goodness for that. Isn’t technology amazing!
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