In a study published in the February issue of Archives of Surgery, researchers found a strong correlation between a surgeon’s success in video games and their skill in laparoscopic surgery.

Laparoscopic surgery is a modern surgical technique in which operations are performed through small incisions (.5 – 1.5 cm) with a telescopic rod that is connected to a video camera. Similar to a game, The surgeon performs operations while looking at a screen and manipulating controls.

The research was conducted at the Beth Israel Medical Center in New York; the sample was 12 senior doctors with 10+ years of experience and 21 junior doctors with an average of 3 years.

Each doctor was asked about their video game habits before participating in a day and a half clinical test; in which, the surgeons would be given scores on simulated surgery drills based on time and error.

The study found that surgeons who spent at least three hours a week playing games were 27% quicker, made 37% less errors, and scored 42% higher than those who had never played games at all.

As it’s well known amidst gamers that the more you play games, the better you get at gaming as a whole; Douglas Gentile, Iowa State University psychology professor, was surprised to see that “past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills.”

Among the surgeons who played games, those which had higher scores in the games performed better on the surgical test; however, the subjects were not questioned about their bad sleeping habits spawned from staying up late to unlock just one more campaign mini-game in Xbox 360’s Crackdown.

Unfortunately, there were no reports as to what types of games the surgeons were currently playing while conducting these tests. Maybe Dr. Mario on Virtual console? Not likely.

Gentile added, “Parents should not see this study as beneficial if their child is playing video games for over an hour a day; spending that much time playing video games is not going to help their child’s chances of getting into medical school.”

I couldn’t be sure on which doctor I would choose if given the choice between a professional with experience or an amateur with gaming skills. I fear that the gamers would lack the ability to properly distinguish between actions and consequences; one wrong move, and it’s game over.

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Entry was posted on Wednesday, February 21st, 2007 at 6:17 am under Uncategorized.

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