This new four-part Channel 4 series kicks off tonight with an open heart surgery procedure in which the patient – who has a leaking mitral valve – will undergo an operation to repair it, live on air. This leads me to ask one main and obvious question… What if he/she dies on the table? Then there are other issues such as, how is this person’s family going to feel if something goes horrendously wrong and millions of people are watching?

Additionally, we’re told that viewers can “interact with the surgeons” in real-time via microblogging site Twitter as well as by phone and email, live and as the operation is carried out. Viewers will even be able to speak to surgeons by phone at “appropriate points” but surely, with someone’s life in their hands, shouldn’t the surgeons be concentrating on that rather than answering viewers’ questions and possibly coping with stage fright?

Here’s what Channel 4’s press release said of the programme…

“The Operation: Surgery Live (May 25th-28th) features top surgeons from leading NHS hospital trusts performing operations including heart, brain, tumour removal and stomach surgery. It is being made by Windfall Films in association with Wellcome Collection, the public venue run by medical research charity The Wellcome Trust.

“The series offers a unique insight into modern surgery by allowing viewers to interact with the operating theatre -

“The surgery will broadcast live to a studio audience at Wellcome Collection in London, as well as TV viewers at home, from some of the country’s leading NHS hospitals – Papworth, Southampton General, Addenbrooke’s and King’s College Hospital, London. Krishnan Guru-Murthy will host the programmes.

“With the operations playing out in real time, viewers will gain an unprecedented understanding of the surgeons’ skill, precision and dexterity that makes them the best in their fields as well as the challenges faced by surgical teams every day in hospitals around the UK.”

Channel 4’s Commissioning Editor for Science, David Glover, said of the programme: “Surgeons routinely teach and talk observers through operations. Now, for the first time, viewers will be able to interact with surgeons as they carry out life-changing procedures.

“We hope that the series will de-mystify surgery, encourage discussion and help viewers to understand their own bodies, as well as showing the care, dedication and skill that goes into modern surgery.”

However, surely all that could be done by simply filming an operation in progress and airing it at a later date? Why does it have to be live when the potential for disaster is ever-present?

Another question that occurred to me is, are the patients getting paid? If so, doesn’t that raise some serious ethical issues in that, by the very fact these are pretty serious operations, the folks undergoing them are likely to have been off work and may be on benefits or have had to use up their savings to live while off work, so dangling a few grand before their noses would surely be likely to make that person more open to having their operation filmed?

Equally, if the patients aren’t being paid, then are Channel 4 profiting from someone’s misery and illness – and the viewing public’s voyeuristic nature – at the expense of that patient? I know I wouldn’t want a surgeon who was operating on me to be distracted by Twittering, Facebooking and a live studio audience!

And again, what happens if the patient dies on the table or something goes horribly wrong? I know the chances are small but nonetheless, given Sod and his Law, how horrific would it be if something like that did happen?

Will the cameras stop filming if something goes tragically wrong? Is there in fact a time delay – such as the 15 minute time delay to ‘live’ airings of Big Brother for example – to allow for such an event or will it quite literally be live?

I guess many of these questions will be answered tonight when the programme airs on Channel 4 at 10:25pm. In the meantime, you can check out the show’s own microsite here and that’s also where you can ‘interact’ with the surgeon’s live tonight.

Will you be watching or do you think this is reality TV gone crazy and it’s just plain wrong to air something with the potential for tragedy being very real for the people who really matter – the patient and his/her family?