Abstract
Purpose :
Videos of ocular surgery are critical for education of both trainees as well as practicing ophthalmologists. Although current microscopes and recording equipment can record intraocular surgeries clearly, it has been difficult to record extraocular ophthalmic surgeries from the surgeon’s point of view. We compared the ability of two novel observer point-of-view recording devices, Google Glass and GoPro, to document scleral buckle procedures.
Methods :
Google Glass and GoPro HERO4 Silver devices were simultaneously worn by the primary surgeon during scleral buckle surgeries. Footage from the 2 devices was then compared and graded on several criteria, including the ability to adapt to lighting in the operating room, zoom, and overall image and audio clarity. The GoPro microphone adapter and magnifying lens accessories were tested for their ability to enhance recording quality.
Results :
There were certain advantages and disadvantages to each camera. Both devices could record in first person, be easily used by the surgeon, connect to WiFi, and could stream live video. Google Glass excelled in normal ambient lighting; however, the extremely bright and dim lighting intraoperatively created images that were often washed out. Conversely, under the dynamic intraoperative lighting situations, the GoPro in “spot meter” mode created higher quality video than Google Glass. We found that using inexpensive lens and microphone accessories significantly improved GoPro video and audio quality for documenting the surgeries.
Conclusions :
Both Google Glass and GoPro successfully documented extraocular ophthalmic surgeries. GoPro was consistently able to obtain high quality images, and this was enhanced by the lens and microphone attachments. Surgeon point-of-view recording has the potential to enhance surgical education and physician communication.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2016 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Seattle, Wash., May 1-5, 2016.