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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?
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".
>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.
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
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.
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?"