Winnipeg students take in live-streamed knee surgery

A group of Manitoba students got a front row seat to the operating room Monday.

Students in Africa, Taiwan and at Winnipeg’s Sisler High School streamed a live feed of a knee surgery being performed out of Winnipeg’s Pan Am Clinic.

Sisler's Jamie Leduc spearheaded the video conference.

"You can't learn from a text book all the time, right? It's not diagrams, it's real interactive," said Leduc.

Philip Kawalek, another student at Sisler, said the experience wasn't quite what he’d expected.

“There was a lot of, you know, like, tugging and pulling and drilling and everything like that,” he said. “It was a lot more rough than I would have thought."

Doctor Wayne Hildahl said the ability to invite students into the OR in this way is ground breaking.

“They're taking this through the schools to the world and to be part of that is just a privilege"

He hopes it inspires learning and maybe even encourages a few young minds to become surgeons.

But the cutting and tugging may have done the opposite for Jatinder Saini.

Saini was put off by some of the more graphic aspects of the surgery.

"The blood and stuff — I just couldn't bear to see it."

The purpose of live-streaming the surgery was to connect students to science and to promote insight into sports injuries.