INTRODUCTION: YouTube is a popular video search engine among surgical trainees due to its wide availability and easy accessibility. However, the educational quality of YouTube surgical videos may vary due to lack of requirement for peer review. In contrast, PubMed provides millions of peer-reviewed videos, but not all PubMed content is freely accessible. The Laparoscopic Surgery Video Educational Guidelines Video Assessment Tool (LAP-VEGaS VAT) is a nine-item checklist for assessing the educational quality of laparoscopic surgical videos. Each item is scored from 0 to 2, with higher scores indicating higher educational quality. To our knowledge, LAP-VEGaS VAT has not been used to evaluate sacrocolpopexy videos or to compare the quality of videos on PubMed versus YouTube. OBJECTIVE: To compare the educational quality of minimally invasive sacrocolpopexy surgical videos available on two platforms, PubMed and YouTube, using the LAP-VEGaS VAT METHODS: A PubMed search was performed for videos of minimally invasive sacrocolpopexy, applying keywords to capture relevant surgical methods. The “Video Audio Media” filter was used to isolate video content. Videos that were schematic, animated, included concomitant procedures, or contained marketing for surgical equipment were excluded. Each PubMed video was then matched to one or more YouTube videos based on minimally invasive route and video length. To reduce confounders to YouTube’s search algorithm, a private browser was utilized. The PubMed keywords were searched on YouTube, then matched from video list ranked by “Relevance.” Two surgeons (YC and SH) independently scored the videos using the LAP-VEGaS VAT. A third surgeon (MR), masked to initial scoring, resolved scoring discrepancies. The average cumulative and item-specific scores were compared between PubMed and YouTube using an independent-samples t-test, assuming unequal variances with corrections for multiple comparisons where applicable. RESULTS: 18 PubMed videos and 19 YouTube videos published between 2009 and 2024 were reviewed (Table 1). The overall median video length was 7 minutes 38 seconds (range, 4 minutes 30 seconds to 9 minutes 58 seconds). Traditional laparoscopy was the most common route of surgery (n=17, 45.9%), followed by robotic-assisted (n=13, 35.1%) and a combination transvaginal/laparoscopic approach (n=7, 18.9%). The mean cumulative LAP-VEGaS VAT score was significantly higher for the PubMed videos (13.2±2.9, range 9–17) than the YouTube videos (9.7±3.7, range 2–18, p=.003). PubMed videos scored on average higher across all individual items, especially for quality of formal case presentation (Q2), clarity of demonstration of intraoperative findings (Q5), and presence of English-language audio/written commentary (Q8) (Table 2). However, after correcting for multiple comparisons, these differences were not statistically significant. CONCLUSIONS: Educational surgical videos depicting minimally invasive sacrocolpopexy identified by PubMed search were of higher overall educational quality than those found on YouTube when evaluated with the LAP-VEGaS VAT. Restricted free access to many PubMed publications presents a potential barrier to surgeon ongoing medical education, particularly those working outside academic settings. Our findings highlight the importance of advocacy for increased access to publicly available peer-reviewed surgical content.Table 1Table 2
Choi et al. (Fri,) studied this question.