Neurosurgical Operative Videos: An Analysis of an Increasingly Popular Educational Resource

OBJECTIVE: Surgical education has increasingly relied on electronic learning. In particular, online operative videos have become a core resource within neurosurgery. We analyze the forums for neurosurgical operative videos. METHODS: Operative videos from 5 sources were reviewed: 1) the NEUROSURGERY Journal YouTube channel; 2) the American Association of Neurological Surgeons Neurosurgery YouTube channel; 3) The Neurosurgical Atlas Operative Video Cases; 4) Operative Neurosurgery; and 5) Neurosurgical Focus: Video. Title, year of publication, senior author, institution, country, and subspecialty were documented for each video. RESULTS: A total of 1233 videos showing 1247 surgeries were identified. Ten videos included >1 surgery; of those, there was a median of 2 surgeries (interquartile range, 2.0–2.5) per video. The most frequently represented subspecialties included vascular (48.3%), tumor (35.2%), and skull base surgery (27.5%), with almost 40% of videos showing >1 category. Videos were submitted by investigators from 28 countries, but 82.1% of the videos originated in the United States. CONCLUSIONS: Neurosurgical operative videos have become increasingly common through a variety of online platforms. Future efforts may benefit from collecting videos from underrepresented regions and subspecialties, providing long-term follow-up data and showing techniques for managing complications.