How to make an educational surgical video in 8 steps

Educational surgical videos have become increasingly popular in recent years to supplement the training of surgical residents. Teaching surgeons, even without any editing background, can produce these educational tools themselves. Who better than the surgeons to chose which part of the procedure to insist on! Here is how do you make an educational surgical video in eight steps.

In France and around the world, surgeons undergoing initial or continuing training often watch surgical videos, most often on platforms such as Youtube or Vimeo.

Some patients prepare for their procedure using video content available on Google, even though these educational surgical videos are primarily designed for surgical students and residents.

Making an educational surgical video: presentation

There are many advantages:

• viewable on smartphones anywhere, anytime;
• offer ideal theoretical support to complement the training provided in the operating theatre;
• can be integrated into a university teaching project with surgical simulators or cadaveric dissection;
• enables experienced surgeons to compare practices in different hospitals around the world.

This article is a guide for healthcare professionals: presenting the keys to easily edit from start to finish, while optimising the technical characteristics of the surgical video and respecting medical confidentiality. Some technical terms are used, so don’t hesitate to consult our video editing glossary and technical glossary.

To go further, a number of articles explore specific aspects of video editing, you can read them here.

Video editing: from beginner to professional

Video acquisition takes place during the surgical procedure, using dedicated surgical equipment (video columns, microscopes, etc.) or an external device (operating theatre camera, frontal camera, etc.). Choosing the best filming system to have the clearest surgical view is crucial.

Different stages in the editing process can be identified. To edit a video smoothly and easily, it’s important to get organised beforehand and to have a clear idea of what needs to be done.

Find out more: Beginner tutorials with DaVinci Resolve

Find out more: Four tips for faster video editing

Stage 1: Prior to editing

First of all, you need to organise your work plan, create a specific folder and organise the various elements into sub-folders – rushes, sounds, graphics, etc.

For the moment, only the raw video files of the procedure exists, but preparing the organisation of the workspace beforehand saves time afterwards.

It is also important to identify the characteristics of the video file (format, bit rate, resolution) and their compatibility with editing software. Sometimes conversion is necessary to optimise the files.

Stage 2: De-rushing

A rush is a raw unedited video file.

In the case of a surgical video, the viewer has a single rush of the surgical procedure, sometimes several hours long and including several pauses (to clean instruments, think, etc.).

The de-rushing stage is the most important : it consists of identifying the points of interest in the video file, trimming it to a much shorter video and deleting unnecessary parts using the editing software.

Ideally, this should be done as soon as possible after the surgery, if possible on the same day, when the intra-operative events and passages of educational interest are still fresh in the memory. This avoids having to watch the whole rush several days later to recall the key passages: this saves a considerable amout of time!

Step 3: Identifying chapters in the video

Next, the aim is to define the video’s educational plan, based on the strategic stages of the procedure. This gives rise to chaptering, highlighted using title inter-screens.

After that, the structure starts to take shape: it’s time to move on to the details.