A four-year-old video of an Indian doctor, performing the frightening and unpleasant procedure of endoscopy on himself, went viral on Twitter recently after being shared by the Cornwall-based gastroenterologist, Dr. Keith Siau.
Note: Viewer discretion is advised.
Self upper GI endoscopy 🔦😳https://t.co/LZ4MexxxAx pic.twitter.com/PJ8rmensuH
— Keith Siau (@drkeithsiau) November 13, 2022
The video shows Dr. Nitin Joshi, from Nanded, India, performing the complex medical diagnostic procedure involving inserting a camera into his own body through the mouth, while a screen displays the footage from the camera.
Dr. Joshi can be seen gagging multiple times as the thin black tube passes through his throat and into the esophagus (the food pipe), and eventually to his stomach. The doctor’s eyes tear up at one point in the video when a colleague can be seen wiping the tears away.
He can be seen removing the tube back out in the video as well, inducing even more gagging reactions than before.
Dr. Joshi reportedly performed the procedure on himself to demonstrate that it did not require sedation, which is a common practice used to calm patients prior to the procedure.
Joshi, who now has over 2,400 subscribers on YouTube, released the video there and stated in the description that it was possibly the first time in India that a physician did a self-assessment upper GI (gastrointestinal) endoscopy (OGD) on himself.
The purpose of this trial and experience was to evaluate the suffering and discomfort of patients undergoing endoscopy sans sedation or brief general anesthesia.
Another goal of the experiment was to test out the endoscope’s abilities and maneuverability during the procedure and improve his own skill at handling it.
