Surgeons are now streaming their craft to a global audience via Google Glass (NSFL video)

A surgeon in the U.K. is now the first to live stream video of a surgical operation via Google Glass (via The Telegraph). The landmark surgery, which removed cancer from a 78 year-old patient’s liver and bowel, was viewed in live time by 13,000 medical students from 115 countries, and is clearly yet another example of a situation in which this innovative device doing good for humanity …

Students who watched had the opportunity to easily submit questions to Shafi Ahmed, Colorectal Cancer Lead at Barts Health NHS Trust, and he received and viewed them at a glance through the Google Glass prism. Most questions he was able to answer verbally in live time during the surgery and were transmitted via the video feed to students tuning in.

You can get a glimpse of the first-person video feed as seen by the students in the embedded video below (but it’s worth noting that it might be a little NSFL; this is a surgery, after all). As you can see, the video not only gives students a look at the surgeon’s hand, but also the assistants that helped make the surgery possible.

Roy Pulfer, the patient in the video, was happy to have his procedure broadcasted around the world, saying “I think that the only way they can learn is to see somebody actually doing it, rather than reading a book.” And it looks like the students agreed that it would be helpful, with 90 percent of those who tuned in saying they want this kind of educational content to be a part of their curriculum.