Video medical journal

Video medical journals use internet video content providers such as YouTube for presentation of medical data. There has been an explosion in the amount of video content available on the internet, principally by user generated and uploaded video on demand services such as YouTube, Flickr and Google Videos(1,2,3). Harnessing this information is more problematic however, as much of the information is not peer reviewed or assessed for quality and veracity of content, and in some cases it may be inappropriate or factually incorrect, dangerous or misleading, of poor quality, or it may offend public decency or taste. The purpose is to capture scientific experiments in a form that may be difficult to demonstrate in conventional video formats. The "Journal of Visualized Experiments" has an editorial board, and its format is in some ways similar to the presentation of video content on YouTube. At the current time www.PathLab.org is the only journal publishing online video material in a similar format.

The author of the video content submits the content to the website moderator or editor. This video information is then assessed by peer reviewers, with direct feedback to the author requesting video edits, or amendments. After approval by the website editor or peer reviewer each video clip has an abstract of the content written by the reviewer and posted on the www.PathLab.org website with a hypertext link on the www.PathLab.org website to the video clip which is uploaded onto the GoogleVideosTM server. Standard DVD video footage can be easily and readily converted into mp4 or AVI file format using freely available shareware or freeware programmes such as SuperTM. We have successfully used an on-demand video download service. Internet video-on-demand will be an increasingly important means of teaching and training in biomedicine and science, particularly when a practical technique is required which is complex, difficult to apply, or to replicate and which would traditionally be taught either ‘hands-on’ in the laboratory or clinic or by tutorials or seminars involving small groups of students or other professionals.

The United States National Library of Medicine has also indicated that video medical journal could also be eligible for indexation on citation index services such as MedlineTM once the website has been in existence for 6 months, and provided the quality of the video content is sufficiently high, accurate, and useful, once there are at least 20 indexable video items on the website, with abstracts (4).

Caveats which need careful consideration such as the nature of the video content which must be suitable for public display, and also patient informed consent and confidentiality issues. Experience has also shown that trainee doctors still also need hands on training both on the bench and on patients, in addition to viewing the video, in order to get proficient at FNA sampling. Internet video resources such as this can help students become better prepared and cut the time and number of procedures in training necessary in order to become proficient in a particular technique. There is also a need for video access that can be password protected if required, so that only pre-screened or selected professionals can view teaching or training content that otherwise would not be suitable for general public display. This is undoubtedly the future for many biomedical and scientific publishing efforts particularly where the content is a practical technique or methods-based, or is difficult to impart in written texts.

References

(1) Keelan J, Pavri-Garcia V, Tomlinson G, Wilson K. YouTube as a source of information on immunization: a content analysis. JAMA 2007;298:2482-4

(2) Lancashire RJ. The JSpecView project: an open source java viewer and converter for JCAMP-DX and XML spectral data files. Chemistry Central Journal 2007;1:31

(3) Whitlock J, Lader W, Conterio K. The internet and self-injury: what psychotherapists should know. J Clin Psychol 2007;63:1135-43

(4) Personal communication Mr L Kotzins, US National Library of Medicine to Dr DN Poller, Founder of www.PathLab.org, January 2008.