Twittering in an operating room

Social media has leaked into almost every facet of our lives, and we’re even taking a class on how social media has to be used in PR because the traditional ways are not enough anymore. It seems everyone uses these new technologies, and CNN reports that social media has even found its way into a hospital’s operating room, using Twitter. This is the second time which Tweets have come live from an operating room. A surgeon at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit had a laptop in the OR during a “potentially risky” surgery of removing a cancerous tumor from a man’s kidney. While the surgeon only tweeted before the operation, he fed updates to his chief resident, Dr. Raj Laungani, who tweeted during the operation. Dr. Craig Rogers, who performed the surgeries, said the reason for twittering was to broadcast the procedure in order for people to know that the entire kidney did not have to be removed when extracting a cancerous tumor.

Comments, or tweets, used in the article were from those who followed the operating room twittering session. The commenters explained that they were fascinated by having the chance to follow an operation, but mostly, others were grateful to know that they could count on up-to-the-minute updates on their family member.
Many of the comments in response to the CNN article were negative. They thought the chief resident should’ve made better use of his time, rather than twittering. For example, “Joe Don” commented: “So, does insurance have to pay for the chief resident to sit at a computer twittering? No wonder health care in the US is so screwed up. Think of all the useful stuff he could have done instead during that time. Like, I dunno, save a life down in the ER or something.”

There were a few positive comments, and one of them from a “Andrew W” said:

This is excellent news! Really, it's no different than video recording the procedure and releasing it online... except this is far more convenient. It can be used for a variety of educational purposes for not only college students pursuing a career in surgery, but also for other surgeons to study the strategies of other surgeons.
I know some people will be up in arms about this, but it could greatly improve the ability of our surgeons if used on a massive scale.

Social media has proven to be beneficial to small businesses, reaching new audiences for established businesses, and even finding a relationship. Has medicine found a use for it, too? Has twittering in an operating room gone too far or is it just the beginning?