Video Games and Surgery
Engadget is reporting today that Gamers make better surgeons. Their report is based on a new study published in the Archives of Surgery, which shows, in a very small study, that surgeons who play video games have considerably higher surgical skills. This is especially true when they are doing surgery while manipulating instruments and having to watch the manipulation on a monitor.
This extremely small study only included 33 surgeons, but still, it found that those who played video games for at least three hours a week performed 27 percent faster, made 37 percent fewer errors, and scored 42 percent better in surgical test than those who had not played video games. The study showed that the correlation between video games and surgical skills was so high that it was more accurate indicator of surgical performance than either the length of the surgeons training or their experience with laporscopic surgery.
Now I Guess many parents will have to get off their kids behinds about video games?
February 20th, 2007 • 
Weirdharold • 
comment | February 20, 2007 at 13:12 | individual comment-link
Go get Trauma Center Second Opinion for the Wii… you have to select your instruments, do things in order, quickly, efficiently and maintain a whole lot while doing surgery.
It’s an odd exercise, especially after using the Wiimote to play boxing. heh. Kinda gross and compelling at the same time. I love it, even though it’s the moddest game playing experience I’ve had to date.
comment | February 20, 2007 at 15:25 | individual comment-link
I was going to make a similar comment, Eric. I keep seeing that game for the Wii and thinking I should check it out, but it sort of reminds me of a futuristic version of the board game Operation (don’t hit the sides!)