VIDEO: Croatian surgeon sharing rare surgeries on YouTube

Dr Zenon Pogorelić (Linkedin)

A Croatian paediatric surgeon is using YouTube to share educational videos of rare surgeries. In his latest upload, he showcases a procedure on a seven-year-old.

Associate Professor Dr Zenon Pogorelić, head of the Paediatric Surgery Department at Split University Hospital, is a well-loved paediatric 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 underwent surgery at Split University Hospital after presenting with a mass in the thoracic cavity.

A CT scan identified an extralobar sequestration. The sequestration was fully removed by Dr Pogorelić using a videothoracoscopic procedure. The patient’s recovery was smooth, with the drain removed on the first day after surgery, and he was discharged home shortly after.

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

If we hadn’t operated, the child could have potentially developed a malignant disease or infection. Of course, you can’t learn to operate by watching a screen, but you can pick up some ‘tricks’ and see how someone else has handled it,” Dr Pogorelić told Slobodna Dalmacija.

This isn’t his first time; he began sharing surgical footage six years ago, always ensuring patient identities are protected.

“It’s a practice used by many doctors. I generally post surgeries involving anomalies that aren’t very common and aren’t performed ‘every day.’ Some of these videos have been viewed by up to 30,000 people. So far, mine have been watched by around 100,000.

They’re viewed by doctors from India, the US, and other countries, as well as ordinary people who are interested,” Dr Pogorelić said, emphasising that the videos are purely educational.

He added that the videos are frequently watched by students or doctors who need to perform a similar surgery but have never done it before.