YouTube as an educational resource in neurosurgery

Abstract

Objective: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the contribution of neurosurgery videos on YouTube to the education of medical students, residents and professional medical professionals.Methods: Members of the Turkish Neurosurgery Association (academic and clinical specialist physicians) and medical students receiving neurosurgery training were asked to respond to a questionnaire via e-mail.Results: Anatomy (29.1%) was the most watched videos, while vascular, tumor and skull base surgery videos (56.3%) were the most watched surgical videos. While the United States of America is the first among the countries contributing to the videos, our country is the last. It was observed in our study that surgeons watched the operation videos before difficult surgeries and benefited from these videos to increase their experience. It is also undeniable that youtube videos increase the surgical experience of surgeons in underdeveloped and developing countries. has a contribution.Conclusion: We observed that the training videos were of sufficient quality. In addition, virtual training and surgical videos are increasingly being used for education, especially during the COVID-19 pandemic. It is necessary to increase the diversity of YouTube videos, which have a high rate of viewing among neurosurgery physicians in our country. The training of neurosurgeons can make important contributions to patient care in our country. Considering that such major pandemics may occur in the future, it is certain that more diversification of training and operation videos will be required.