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Videogames And Surgery - Fine Bedfellows?
Thanks to GamerDad for their editorial discussing why playing videogames can make you a better doctor. The author, a medical man and long-time gamer, found "...that when learning how to perform laparoscopic surgery, that it seemed to come relatively easy for me", explaining laparoscopy is "...operating by watching the instruments on a television screen. You are not able to look down at your hands because you need to keep your eyes on the screen." He credits games as "honing my hand-eye coordination", and concludes: "In my professional opinion, growing up in the age of video games has helped me to learn how to perform laparoscopic surgery more easily and quickly." Which careers are you better-suited for through your use of videogames?
Now I can't wait to find out how good I am at LoViN!
"Derp de derp."
Since I've started doing lunges at the gym, Mrs. Dancin Santa has become happier and more sexually satisfied.
I'm going to kill the elf who's been fucking her while I'm at the gym.
Hmm... it's too rude to say on a forum which may be visited by children.
Daniel
Carpe Diem
Oh my, yes! Running around with the chainsaw made me see lots of internal organs.
The chainsaw wasn't sterile, though.
My cats ate my karma. They also wrote this comment.
Videogames And Surgery
Also, don't forget to try alcohol and driving.
dunno about surgery, but all those hours hammering the joystick at Daley Thompson's Decathlon have made me a formidable masturbator.
The 1500m was a real stamina builder.
Si
A friend of mine is a pilot, and he too says that playing games has aided his hand-eye coordination. This is particularly true, he says, when using the training simulators. Indeed, some other pilots were visibly having difficulty in performing some tasks, while he found it rather easy (e.g. maintaining a crosshair in a particular position while flying).
I can also say that playing quake 3 has aided my ability to be rather good at clay pigeon shooting.
... that he's not a "button-masher".
The life support system is soon to be fitted with an extra feature, a 'life energy bar'. When energy is depleted the patient dies. Simple, and fun!
I hear 'level 3 - brain tumour removal' is an absolute bitch to complete.
Video games are helpful. I mean, I used to be very awkward about beating a prostitute with a bat or shooting down a fleeing pedestrian, but now I can do it in my sleep. ;)
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
>Which careers are you better-suited for through your use of videogames?
Welfare recipient
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I support spreading santorum
Grad student.
My years of playing video games have honed my skills as a game designer. Funny that.
This is one of those articles I need to take home and give to Mom! " See mom! Surgeons get payed a lot! Now, how would it make you feel if I get into medical school and fail because I have not played enough Video games." :) See what that does about her "Saturday only" approach!
DUKEY!
The doctor in question says, "In my professional opinion, growing up in the age of video games has helped me to learn how to perform laparoscopic surgery more easily and quickly."
I would have to say that while he may believe videogames helped him perform surgery, and they very well may have, he has no legitimacy to place a 'professional' opinion on it. His profession would be surgery, not hand-eye coordination or visual skills. To have a professional opinion on the subject, he would need to have studied it specifically and extensively.
It would seem this is geared, rather, towards his personal opinion. A study (or at least a look-over by someone in the field of hand-eye coordination or visual research) would be required for anyone to voice a professional opinion.
-Trillian
Well, not exactly unemployed, more like "self employed." But I know a lot of completely unemployed computer technicians who are where they are because of their videogame addictions.
Oh, and watching flash movies on Newgrounds when they should have been answering tech support calls.
Intolerance for ambiguity is the mark of the authoritarian personality.
Within 5 seonds of a residents first time at the scope, you can tell whether they have played video games.
I definately played more games than my fellow residents, and was generally reguarded as the best in arthroscopy in my class.(Yes this is anecdotal evidence, but probably 90% of the OB/Gyns, general surgeons and orthopaedists that I have worked with think that playing video games helps!)
This is probably the only time in our training where we are encouraged to play video games!(Well, that is if you are sub-optimal at scoping.)
..........FULL STOP.
I don't intend to be inflammatory or a troll, but I do think it was a Microsoft flight sim.
..........FULL STOP.
Well, I'm a homemaker (and a wanna-be mom), and I think games have helped in several ways:
- If I don't know how to do something (like how to get rid of aphids on rosebushes), it's easy to look up hints, just like when you get stuck in a game
- I know from experience what game ratings usually mean, so I can make better informed decisions about what games our future kids will and won't play and at what ages they will play them
- It's improved my reflexes and ability to think about lots of things at the same time -- something that's helpful when you're cooking dinner, washing dishes, paying bills, and watching children all at the same time
- Keeping track of finances is a lot like keeping track of hit points - you just need to budget them wisely.
-- Qirien, Academy of Defenestration
"Who do you want to defenestrate today?"
i PLAy CS so i can B a REOL special counter terrorism guy
Okay seriously, games like CS are pretty far from the real thing. Obviously, some games like realistic flight simulators are so good at teaching people a skill that they are really used in the really really real world to teach people skills before they are allowed to get into the cockpit of a real 747. Of course other simulations, like Silent Service, are so far from the real thing that if you were to ever get into a real sub after playing it you'd probably be killed or thrown in the brig for being incompitent.
In general, I think video game skills help a lot in any job where quick thinking, quick reflexes, and good hand-eye coordination are required. Driving, for example. Or operating any kind of vehicle, really. One area where they DON'T help is any task which involves physical endurance. CS doesn't prepare you at ALL for the realities of getting shot at and having to shoot back. The next time you're playing and FPS and someone says "IF THIS WERE IN REAL LIFE I'D BEAT YOU EASILY", challenge them to a paintball match, and they'll quickly learn that war is hell and in real conflicts some people get fucking killed dead, and they never come back. It's pretty scary when someone nails your paintball mask right inbetween the eyes, and you take it off and look at that splatter of paint, and think "If that was a real bullet, my head would be splattered all over the ground behind me. Think about THAT next time you play GTA in sniper mode...
When Mario falls down a hole, who cares, because unless you suck you know the infinite life tricks on world 1 level 2, world 2 fortress, and world 3 level whatever with lockatoo. In REAL life there is only ONE chance. You fuck it up just ONCE, game over man.
-73, de n1ywb
www.n1ywb.com
Bot Pilot.
When the army finally comes out with their Robot Soldier I'll be right there to take on any of those evil middle-easter clans!
I practice manipulating my tool with my hands. For up to an hour per day. And I don't look at my tool; I stare at the video screen in front of me. Can be a laproscopic surgeon now?! Oh, please?!
well, at least in the strictest unisex definition of the word
The sending of this message pretty much inconveniences everyone involved.
Princess Rescuer.
And I even know what to say when she gives me lip!
"Excuuuuuuuuuse me, princess!"
There are simulators just for this purpose.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
... just like i warn the people that push me too far at work ... ive had extensive training over the last 20 years that has made me an expert in all sorts of fields ...
... pistols, machine guns, rifles, heavy weapons, both world war 2 and current ...
... unarmed combat, in multiple styles, including brawling, karate, ninjitsu, and all the eastern arts, including fighting with swords and nun-chuks, and axes ...
... i can drive multiple vehicles, cars, trucks, buses, bikes (both sports and dirt, and even scooters), planes, boats ...
... i have had combat training against nazis, zombies, aliens, robots, civilians, in multiple time periods, and ive battled in places where you can take turns to do stuff, or where you can attack each other at the same time ...
... and i also play a mean game of tennis ...
The job does exist, but it's a job and you've got to work.
Ever play Microsurgeon?
(Sorry, it had to be mentioned.)