VIDEO: Croatian surgeon shares rare operations on YouTube

A Croatian pediatric surgeon is using YouTube to share educational videos about rare surgeries. In his latest upload he shows an operation on a seven-year-old.

The associate professor Dr. Zenon Pogorelić, head of the Department of Pediatric Surgery at Split University Hospital, is a popular pediatric surgeon and one of the most cited scientists in the world.

He recently uploaded a video of an operation on a seven-year-old patient who subsequently underwent surgery at Split University Hospital presents with a mass in the chest cavity.

A CT scan revealed extralobar sequestration. The sequestration was carried out by Dr. Pogorelić was completely removed using a video thoracoscopic procedure. The patient's recovery was smooth, the drain was removed on the first day after surgery and he was discharged home shortly afterwards.

“I personally watched videos from colleagues around the world because I could learn something from them. In the video (below), the child had an additional lobe of the lung that was not ventilated and not connected to the bronchus, but had its own blood supply.

If we had not operated, the child could have potentially developed a malignant disease or infection. Of course, you can't learn how to use it by looking at a screen, but you can learn a few 'tricks' and see how someone else used it,” said Dr. Pogorelic Slobodna Dalmacija.

This isn't his first time; He began sharing surgical footage six years ago, always careful to protect patients' identities.

“It is a practice that is used by many doctors. I generally report on surgeries with anomalies that are not very common and are not performed “every day.” Some of these videos have been viewed by up to 30,000 people. So far my films have been seen by around 100,000 viewers.

They are viewed by doctors from India, USA and other countries as well as interested common people,” said Dr. Pogorelić and emphasized that the videos were purely educational in nature.

He added that the videos are often viewed by students or doctors who need to perform a similar operation but have never done it before.