Representation and Educational Content of Spine Surgery in Operative Videos: A 10-Year Journal-Based Analysis

Video-driven education offers a powerful tool for illustrating intricate techniques and critical anatomic insights for surgical residents. Surgical procedures of the spine require a wide field of view, making their capture difficult. The objective of this study is to quantify the representation and educational content of published spine videos in peer-reviewed journals.

From 2015 to 2026, 1581 videos were identified across 4 peer-reviewed journals that routinely publish spine surgical videos. An educational content score was calculated for each video as the sum of the presence of narration, stepwise procedural explanation of the procedure, and the presence of pre-/postoperative imaging. General characteristics of each video were assessed.

Across the 4 journals, the distribution of core procedural domains demonstrated a predominance of cranial videos (72.9%) followed by spine (24.0%). Within the spine cohort, tumor (28.2%) and degenerative (26.3%) cases saw the greatest prevalence. The mean educational content score ranged from 2.85 to 2.97 from 2023 to 2026. US institutions were responsible for 58.6% of video publications.

Spine surgical videos are under-represented in peer-reviewed journals compared with their intracranial counterparts. Methods to make spine video capture easier should be implemented, with an emphasis on peer-reviewed publication. Such journals hold their videos to a high standard for publication, maintaining essential requirements regarding their educational value.