A video of a full knee replacement surgery, filmed by a Bega surgeon, has had more than one million hits on YouTube.

Bega orthopaedic surgeon Matthew Nott filmed, edited and uploaded the video in January 2014, but on Thursday, June 23, cheered as the viewers topped the million mark.

The entire surgery at the recently closed Bega District Hospital was filmed with a head cam, which was a first for Dr Nott, and, he believes, possibly the world (on Youtube at least)!

He said most filmed surgeries he knows of are filmed with regular cameras in theatre lights.

However, the helmet-mounted camera allows viewers to get a feel for the entire theatre layout and a surgeon-eye view of the work.

“There’s been a lot of interest in this one,” Dr Nott said.

“I get calls about it all the time from all over the world.

“It gets about 1000 hits a day just in the US.”

The edited video footage goes for 14 minutes from scrubbing up to stitching up.

In reality, Dr Nott says this particular surgery takes around 80 minutes “from skin to skin” then add 45 minutes for anaesthetic and 1-2 hours recovery for a patient’s four-odd hours in theatre.

This particular surgery was textbook, with a good result, even more so now.

“He’s delighted to become famous and seeing his knee get over a million hits,” Dr Nott said of his patient (whose identity is confidential).

If you’re okay with watching graphic surgical procedures, the full video is below.

RELATED COVERAGE