Is broadcasting heart procedures safe?

Broadcasting heart procedures live to doctors at medical meetings may not present a risk to the patient on the table, a new study suggests. In theory, there could be. Not only are there distractions—like cameras—in the operating room, but there's a live discussion as well. To study the question, doctors at Rambam Medical Center in Haifa, Israel, reviewed records for 101 patients who had their heart procedure transmitted live to a medical meeting between 1998 and 2010. They found that the procedures were a "technical success" 95 percent of the time. The findings, reported in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology: Cardiovascular Interventions, are not the final word.