Doctors around the country are using social networking tools to bring patients' families and the general public into operating rooms, sometimes sharing step-by-step medical procedures. They favor the real-time updates and videos as a way to reduce the fear factor of surgeries and educate people about the realities of certain procedures, especially new ones. For example, earlier this year surgeons at a Detroit hospital used Twitter to report the blow-by-blow steps of an operation to remove a kidney tumor.
