We’ve done many product reviews on Medgadget and have read many more on other sites, but the review of the GoPro HERO 3+ Black Edition camera by surgeons at the University of Chicago Medical Center and Pritzker School of Medicine really caught our attention. We’ve used GoPros before and it was interesting to find out how the unusually lit OR environment would work with the camera’s wide lens and what settings would be most appropriate to prevent washout.
The team used the camera to record four procedures from the point of view of the surgeon, two fat graft procedures and two breast reconstructions. There’s a lot of detail in the article published in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery – Global Open, an open access journal of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons, but the quick takeaway is in the conclusion of the study abstract: “When set to a narrow field of view and automatic white balance, the camera is able to sufficiently compensate for the contrasting light environment of the operating room and capture high-resolution, detailed video.”
Study: Video Capture of Plastic Surgery Procedures Using the GoPro HERO 3+