How far can Twitter mania go? Doctors at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit have now live Twittered a surgery to remove a cancerous tumor from a man’s kidney.

The surgery was performed by robot so the chief resident was tapping away on his laptop from outside of the operating room. And the patient had given his consent. But still…this is about as “icky” as we’ve heard in the social media space.

So, why did they do it?

Dr. Craig Rogers, the lead surgeon in the Henry Ford surgery, said the impetus for his Twittering was to let people know that a tumor can be removed without taking the entire kidney.

“We’re trying to use this as a way to get the word out,” Rogers said.

Christopher Parks, co-founder of the Web site ChangeHealthcare.com, praised the decision as well. “Doing this removes a real communication barrier. It helps make something scary much more comprehendable. It brings us closer together and makes us more engaged.”

It’s not the first live surgical Twitter. Four months ago, Robert Hendrick, tweeted his own varicose vein removal surgery. “I wanted a record for other people who might be interested in the same surgery,” Hendrick said.

But do we really want our doctors tweeting? During the tumor removal surgery, clamps were placed on the kidney to restrict blood flow. These have to be removed within 30 minutes. At one point, the doctor Twittered “25 minutes left!”

Drama or voyeurism? What will be next? Perhaps a careless driver will get pulled over for operating a vehicle “under the influence of Twitter.”