Video Nurse on Youtube made its debut earlier this year (2010) with the encouragement of web entrepreneur Chris Pirillo and the support of various friends both inside and outside the medical world. They know my passion for health care and particularly Community Health, which is my emphasis as a B.S.N./RN and psychotherapist.
Now I am temporarily moving Video Nurse segments to my new Hips For Hire Blogger site (its current home is HipsForHire.ning.com, but we'll be wrapping up that community this month). I am launching a Ustream.tv show, "Video Nurse" airing Mondays at 5pm PST, fielding questions about health care and mental health care, and preparing interesting subjects in a "Dr. Phil" type of format, without formally diagnosing or treating anyone (for liability issues). Please check out my show starting June 7, 2010 on ustream.tv (search for Video Nurse).
For those of you joining my web community or reading this post, here's a post I wrote in March 2010 explaining the idea and environment in which Video Nurse evolved:
Why Video Nurse Makes Sense
by Imei Hsu, RN, MAC, LMHC
SeattleDirectCounseling
March 5, 2010
We already know that the Internet has changed the way we do life in general. In a survey of Americans taken by Yahoo! as shown on the Today Show on March 5, 2010, people have indicated that the Internet is something they can't do without, and even more importantly, email has replaced snail mail as the quintessential form of communication of letters and notes. And with movies like "Avatar" and "Alice in Wonderland", 3-D movies are changing the way we literally see life. What next?
If video killed the radio star, can video "kill" or change the way we deliver medicine?
Though we will never replace the need for a set of eyes, hands, ears, nose and a brain to physically observe a person showing a set of symptoms, video and digital reproduction are being used in innovative ways to keep us healthy. The ways we can use new technologies are endless.
At the SMC Seattle's Tweetup at Swedish Medical Center last week, I sat at a machine that allowed me to get the feel of conducting a lap-band procedure. Grasping handles that were so much more comfortable than Joy-stick style game controllers, I plucked, lifted, stretched, and lassoed a number of gelatinous objects in my viewer, whilst others looked at the real objects and cheered me on in my imaginary world of lap band placement. I walked away feeling like a pro, though I assure you, it would be many hours of training before the average medical student will be performing his or her first procedure.
If only bariatric training could have been so cool. Back in the day, nurses and doctors studied books and watched videos of surgeries and procedures. Then we scheduled "cut and sew alongs" (my phrase), practicing on real people with an supervising physician. Every medical newbie remembers the first time s/he cauterized a bleeder, or placed stitches on an ear hanging precariously off the side of a patient's head. With real-time video, streaming, and digital reproduction, learning is faster, realistic, and vivid. Just like my philosophy instructor said, "Like the Matrix, the virtual is now more real than the Real."
If these technologies, documentation, and videos are available for people to access, why do we need something like "Video Nurse", a new concept I am testing on Youtube to provide questions and answers from the Internet about health, mental health, and relationships? One of my Youtube subscribers said it succinctly: because there isn't anything else like it on Youtube, and because people are lazy. The info is there. Yet we still like to talk to a warm body and be pointed in a direction that makes sense to us.
If curiosity killed the cat, I wonder how many of my cat lives are dead. I love finding good questions, and then I literally want to do a combo "pee-pee dance/O face" of excitement whilst I research answers off the Internet, compare statistics and sources, and decide what is essential to share.
Got an interesting question for Video Nurse? Send it in, and let me at it. Chances are, someone out there has been asking the same question, and together, we can do a world of good. If there are enough questions for a full-life show, I'll stream my answers in a 30 minute or 60 minute event on Ustream.tv. Grab your popcorn - or, oh wait! Find out what Video Nurse has to say about digestion and corn, and then make your own decision about what to grab for a snack.
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