Surgery is moving into the 21st century, and doctor communication is coming right along with it. That’s ZocDoc’s bailiwick!

The operation, which was performed at the Jewish Hospital of Louisville, KY, took a whopping 18 hours to complete. It was conducted by a rotating team of anesthetists, nurses, assistants and six hand surgeons. During a procedure this complex, duties are traded off frequently to avoid doctor fatigue during the delicate reattachment of nerves, muscles and blood vessels.

The transplant recipient, who was identified only as a severed burn victim, had trouble with the most basic tasks, like reaching into a pocket for his keys. There is still a chance that his body will reject the transplanted hands, and he will have to take anti-rejection drugs for the rest of his life. Still, surgeries of this new and complex type come as vital improvements for the disabled or severely disfigured. (Speak with a hand surgeon.)

But the hand surgery isn’t the only experimental side of this story. The entire procedure was detailed live on Twitter as it took place. (Don’t worry! None of the actual surgical team was tweeting – a different doctor handled it. That’d be worse than tweeting-while-driving, wouldn’t it?) The age of dusty black agendas  – and the three-week wait for an appointment – is coming to a close as more and more doctors power up their smartphones.

And that’s where ZocDoc comes in. We don’t just help you book lightning-fast appointments – we use every means available to keep you and your doctor in the same loop, and make sure your appointment is right on time. Did your appointment get delayed? We want to know why, and we want to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If that means texting your doctor, we’re all over it.