Brad Carter, is a 39-year-old actor suffers from Parkinson's disease. To counteract the effects of the progressive neurological disorder, Carter had a pacemaker implanted into his brain. It's a fairly common procedure, but Carter's operation was a bit special.
Carter was the 500th person to undergo a deep brain stimulation operation at Ronald Regan UCLA Medical Center. To celebrate, the operating team documented the surgery with Vine, a six-second video capturing service, Instagram and Twitter.
"Not everyone gets to experience a surgery, and more specifically an awake brain surgery," Dr. Nader Pouratian, director of the Neurosurgical Movement Disorders Program at UCLA and the surgeon conducting the operation said to The Huffington Post. "I thought it was a great opportunity to share with the world."
Carter, of course, consented to the recording.
UCLA brain surgeons typically keep their patients awake in order have the patient undergo some sort of activity. This allows the surgeon to properly place the electrodes in the brain.
Carter, a former musician who lost his ability to play as his disease progressed, asked if he could play the guitar. He was told he could, making for a musical medical first.
Pouratian said one of the reasons the surgery is so conducive to live tweeting is largely because surgeons need to update conscious patients on the surgery's progress. And Pouratian would also like to reduce the anxiety would-be patients have on such operations.
Live tweeting surgeries isn't a particularly new phenomenon, though it is uncommon. As the Los Angeles Times notes, Houston's Memorial Hermann Northwest Hospital first live tweeted an open heart surgery in 2012, and another hospital in England used Vine to record and share a hip surgery.
"Many in the public don't know about this treatment so UCLA Health System thought this would be a good way to get the word out," UCLA Health spokeswoman Roxanne Yamaguchi Moster said in an email to The Los Angeles Times. "And yes, this is UCLA Health System's first live-tweet surgery."
Carter, who has appeared on "The Mentalist" and "Dexter" and in numerous commercials, experienced a dramatic improvement after the surgery and is set to be released on Friday.
