MANILA - MEDICAL students in the Philippines have been banned from videotaping surgeries after one student allegedly uploaded a clip of a rectal procedure on the Internet, the education department said on Wednesday.

Commission on Higher Education chief Romulo Neri banned 'video cameras, mobile phones with camera features and other similar equipment ... particularly while attending clinical classes'.

Official sources said the ban was related to a video clip that last month appeared on the Internet video-sharing site, YouTube, showing nurses and surgeons laughing and cheering as a canister was removed from a male patient's rectum in an operating room.

The video has embarrassed the Health Department and the medical community, and the patient has threatened to sue for violating his privacy.

There are widespread suspicions that a medical student uploaded the video to YouTube.

Mr Neri said his order aims 'to ensure that the integrity of all activities concerning the exercise or practice of related learning experience of nursing and other medical students are properly supervised and monitored'. -- AFP