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Playing Video Games Makes For Better Surgeons
Steve Wallach writes "ABC News on line is reporting that surgeons that play video games at least three hours a week make 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and complete the surgery 27% faster than their non-video game playing colleagues. '"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study Tuesday at Beth Israel Medical Center.'"
Somehow I doubt that Harvard is going to accept high school students who took only business classes and write in big bold letters on their applications "I Kick Ass at Dr. Mario!!!"
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
What life skills are learned through car-jackings and running over of hookers from GTA? ;)
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
I am sure the sight of gushing blood probably doesn't effect too many of them either.
Enough Doom or Unreal will fix that problem for you.
...I'd tend to disagree. That Xbox controller is just a tad thicker than a scalpel.
Does this mean surgeons are going to place screen shots of their high-scores next to their Diplomas on the Wall?
Gamma Testing - Where testing is extended to the full user community (AKA Shipping the Program)
I guess videogames indeed help a lot with efficient, fast surgery... ... and, of course, the surgeon's nickname "Butch".
... will be screen caps of his high scores and favorite frag moments. If his scores suxxor (or are for pokemon) then you know to run away screaming.
Vonnegut was right: Of all the words of mice and men, the saddest are, "It might have been."
unreal tournament, or Mr. Jones' heart bypass...
I just don't think I could have as much confidence in a surgeon if he mentioned how many people he fragged in UT last night right before my operation.
"The problem with internet quotations is that many are not genuine" -Abraham Lincoln
I wouldn't trust a surgeon who's played a bunch of console games with vibrating controllers. That really doesn't help your hands stay stable.
In the real world, I could see twitch reflexes and reaction times being much better. But, if we're talking somebody holding something that shakes their hands on a regular basis making them more precise, then you've lost me.
Until Slashdot fixes the funny modifier, use insightful or interesting. The poster knows your intentions.
Ha! They've been doing this for years. Its a boardgame called "Operation". Picture of Boardgame I never could get the pieces of the patient out without setting off the alarms. Hopefully the real doctors are good at this game.
"To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield." - Tennyson
Game playing doctors did however show a 25% increase in car-jacking, 14% increase in shooting incidents and 23% increase in slashing peoples throats with a knife.
They also had 46% fewer complaints than other doctors but this could be attributed to other factors. One patient saying...
"Would you complain to a guy who claims he is a crack shot with a railgun ?"
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
Indeed I know for a fact that I wouldn't be half the surgeon I am today were it not for the hours I spent playing operation.
Yeah, and masturbation makes for better lovers...
I guess I'd better go buy my surgeon a PS2 or an XBox just to be on the safe side. Actually, I think his medical malpractice insurance company already sent him one.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
... the good doctor in no time will be trying to kill aliens with his scalpel and do a hearttransplant with a Katana Of Might + 4
Patient: "Hi doctor, how are you doing? Are you ready to start ?"
.. I was playing some Quake I .. That Axe really rocks!"
Doctor: "Ohhh yeah
Patient: "Oh god..."
Great, let's make it mandatory that budding surgeons play video games 3-5 hours a week (or more) instead of some of those boring classes. Pity there's no reset button on the OR table, and that each of us only have one life instead of the standard three. Does anyone want a surgeon who can be characterized as a "button masher"?
Jokes aside, I wonder if it's hand-eye coordination at play here or just the good results of relaxation. Maybe fly tying would be useful too if it's hand-eye.
HAWKEYE PIERCE - Invincibility (on/off)
FLY - Float around (invoked by taking nitrous)
NOTARGET - Nurses don't see you (on/off)
KEVORKIAN - Cut your losses and move to the next patient
NOCLIP - Don't shave patient before incision
STELSEWHERE - Teleport to other hospital
GIVE S # - Gives you # retractors
GIVE N # - Gives you # nails
WALLETDRAIN - Remove contents of patient's bank account to pay for operation
IMPULSE 9 - Gives all knives and tools
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
...my chances to become a brain surgeon are improved.
Government cannot make man richer, but it can make him poorer. - Ludwig von Mises
Some doctors sign their initials in marker next to the stitches after a surgery. That happened to me once and I was a little annoyed seeing it months later after removing my cast. I'd have been even more pissed if they signed "Ownt j00".
DrButch gonna frag yo ass.
Colon Strike 2004!
So the next time I go in for surgery, I can rate my surgeon by challenging him to UT2004. If he doesn't pwn me, I'm not letting him operate.
I needed this info a few years ago, when my parents were telling me that computer games were a waste of my time. I argued that my hand-eye coordination was improving, but alas, I had no evidence from reputable sources like /. to back me up. Now I'm in college and don't have time for 3 hours a day of computer games... but maybe I'll have to start making time so my hand-eye coordination improves... next question is if there is a correlation between playing computer games and higher exam scores?
Frightened parent: Doctor? Our son... how is he?
Clooney: As you know, your son was hurt very badly in the accident. He lost a lot of blood and there was severe damage to his heart.
Frightened parent: Give it to me straight, doctor. How is he!
Clooney: PWNED!
---------
Tune in next week to see Dr. Clooney attempt to save Tess Trueheart's life when her heart stops.
Clooney: Charging to 500, ready... UUDDRLRLBABA!
I guess playing with the joystick will actually not make you blind, "mommy I only do it cause I want to be a doctor/surgeon"
I know how to decapitate with a: Axe, Crowbar, Knife, Glowing Hands, Machine Gun, Shotgun, Rocket Launcher, Sniper Rifle, and a bunch of alein weapons... Maybe I should open my own practice
- Your stupidity got you into this mess, why can't it get you out? -Will Rogers
Wonder if this is related, but it might be that surgeons need practice at maintaining attention on something; like everyone else.
The more practice you get concentrating intensely on hand-eye coordination based activities, the better you get. Hey, I should know. I started out sucking rocks at Quake and ALL FPS, but kept on playing and and getting fragged and managed to figure out how to hold my own, just barely.
Just that since there aren't so many surgical procedures to practice on, playing games are a means of tuning the hand eye coordination. A friend of mine plays a lot of squash for the same reason (although he's pretty careful of his fingers and wrists)
Well, laparoscopic surgery isn't so much a "scalpel" surgery. The image is obtained via a fiberoptic camera, and the surgery itself is performed with remote controlled instruments while the doctor watches the screen.
It's no surprise that video games (controlling things happening on a screen) is good practice for laparoscopic surgery (controlling things happening on a screen).
Did you even read the article? Ohhhhhh, sorry-- forgot where I was for a minute.
From the article:
Rosser has developed a course called Top Gun, in which surgical trainees warm up their coordination, agility and accuracy with a video game before entering the operating room.
What if the doc plays poorly? Is he going to be agitated when he walks into the OR?
The doc in the interview was playing Super Happy Monkey Ball Fun Mr. Sparkle Game, but I can see some folks leaning toward FPSs.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
"You have increased your skill in Piercing (X)"
"All great things are simple & expressed in a single word: freedom, justice, honor, duty, mercy, hope." --Churchill
you better make sure you have your config set the way you like it before you start the surgery. I don't think they would appreciate it much if the instrument swung right through the patient and hit the nurse in the head because the previous doctor left the move sensitivity higher than you are used to. But if that happens you can always just blame it on lag and call the assisting surgen a haxor!
~SmokeyMcpot
The side effect of this benefit is that surgeons who use video games perform less surgeries than those who do not use them, thus leaving far more patients in need of care. Why? Because video games take a considerable amount of time that surgeons do not have.
Nurses used to do at least 50 frags per day with a railgun are 18% more accurate in giving enemas.
Signatures are for stupids.
I don't think that it is suprising that video games increases one's dexterity.
Being a nonsurgeon physician myself, I honestly don't think that most surgeons have a problem with the actual hand-eye part of the surgery.
Most surgeons that I see getting in trouble are surgeons that do procedures that are not really needed... or surgeons that do procedures for which they they are not adequately trained.
Anyway, give me a study that shows that surgeons who play video games have a lower mortality rate during surgery and I'll be impressed.
Until then, it'll just be something else that I kid my surgeon clan members in socomII about.
(Sorry for the typos, but I am typing madly between patient visits.)
Davak
I finally made it through MYST
Somehow I made it through
Don't know how I did it
Broke a joystick or two
I was last in my class
Barely passsed at the institute
Now I'm trying to avoid, yah I'm trying to avoid
A malpractise suit
Hey, like a surgeon
Cuttin' for the very first time
Like a surgeon
Trained by playing DOOM, while online
Like a surgeon, hey
Cuttin' for the very first time
Like a surgeon
Here's a waiver for you to sign
Woe, woe, woe
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
They are faster because they are less worried about the patient. You know, I'm sure they've got at least a couple of extra lives left.
Martin
...that you would be absolutely gutted if your surgeon had just lost badly to a script kiddy :).
;).
Ah! Bad puns! Sometimes, I just kill myself. And if I had the patients to play more games, I would.
P.S. Random offtopic bit: I'm actually a Med student on a surgical team at Dunedin Public Hospital in NZ. A couple of weeks back I saw some guys browsing Slashdot from the computers in the main operating theatre complex. So you never know who'll be reading this...
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surgeons who play surgery video games? Life and death comes to mind... That takes me back many years! It was always fun to attempt surgery on a patient who was not under anesthesia -- or carve one's initials with the scalpal. But the best part was when the head surgeon would condemn you for malpractice etc.. "Your patient died on the operating table! Please report to medical class immediately" -- yeah right! back to the operating room!
I can't count the number of times I got in trouble for talking back to my mother with that. She'd tell me to get off the video games, that it was a waste of my time, and I say that she was just going to watch some cheesy soap opera's anyway, which didn't do anything for her, while my video games were training my coordination and reaction time.
Now, at long last, I am proven correct.
Nurse Ripples: "Dr, what is Gonzo doing?"
Doctor: "Gonzo Gates likes to work off steam firing the land shark gun down the hospital hallways. Keeps him from hitting the bottle again.
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
Some of the games surgeons are playing are:
Super Mario Gallbladder Removal
Sonic The Foreign Object
Sim HMO
Unreal Tournament - Mega Colostomy
Tomb Raider X - Laura Croft Gets Endometriosis
Myst - Secret of the Waiting Room
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
and i'm a little scared of doctors named "butch", hopefully it's not short for "butcher"? :-)
Video Games = Good Doctor and Good Doctor = Hot Willing Nurses Then Video Games = Hot Willing Nurses Yeah, Baby!
Learn About Outsourcing. http://www.pioutsource.com
real blood is not the same. Video game blood and gore, no matter how realalistic, is always a little cartooney and fake. Its just the way it is created, its either a sprite or a fluid 3d representation. Sprites suck, and nobody has mastered accurate fluid representations yet with minimal processing power.
"BigTumor chews on DrButch's boomstick!"
Sometimes I doubt your commitment to Sparkle Motion.
...winning powerball by purchasing a second ticket.
Motivation is obviously a great factor in learning.
...maybe I should've put this in the 4)??? 5)Profit! format?
Think about how booooring it can be to acquire knowledge that's actually cool. Then think about how much FUN it can be to play a computer game that's actually boring.
Man, if we could design games that are both fun and will teach you a useful skill we could really break those learning curves...
Who funded this nonsense?
--- Ban humanity.
I remember getting a game for my Tandy 1000 as a 10-year old kid called "Life & Death", a pleasant emergency room surgery simulator 'game' wherein colleagues would dutifully inform you "He's shuffled off this mortal coil" or "I'm sorry, he's gone" when you (being 10 years old) inevitably messed up the lidocaine dosage or made an incision in the wrong place.
I'm really curious as to what the results would be if actual surgeons tried this game. I suspect it would be more likely to increase malpractice lawsuits and therapy sessions than skill.
this is a really intersting article when compared to this...
and if you see me strut, remind me of what left this outlaw torn...
that the hand-eye part transfers to surgery but NOT the fragging part....
"Heh heh... he thinks he made it through the surgery but wait'll he comes across the tripmine I left in his wheelchair!!!"
"Look at Junior, Hubert."
"What's he up to, Nancy? Oh. Wow!"
"Oh, I'm so proud, Hubert. He's sure to grow up to be a world-famous brain surgeon."
*************
or "I *would* be doing my homework, Ma, but I'm busy preparing for a career in the medical sciences!"
May we never see th
Wouldn't it be cool if, when a patient dies on the table the Pac-Man you've-been-caught-by-a ghost noise (BE-OOP! Be-Oop be-oop) would play?
"Capital punishment makes the state into a murderer. Imprisonment makes the state into a gay dungeon-master"
"My God! She's bleeding all over! Smegley, call for an ambulance immediately! Is there a doctor in the house? Anyone?"
[everyone is still sitting in shocked silence -- nobody rises to the occasion]
"Well, anyone with exceptional hand-eye coordination...how about a video game player, then? Surely *someone* among you must have stomped on a few walking mushrooms in your time!"
May we never see th
IAAD, and here's the deal:
Laparoscopic surgery is done with instruments, but they are not usually "remote controlled." You may be confusing this procedure with remote-controlled robotic surgery.
The procedure goes like this:
Patient is put under anesthesia, and the surgeon chooses his port sites based on the procedure to be performed (gallbladder, etc). Once the patient is out, their belly is insuflated with carbon dioxide (gives the surgeon more room to work). There is a camera involved, but the surgeon actually uses long instruments that fit through the trochars he placed through the 2 or 3 holes he made in the abdominal wall. The instruments are simply long... they are not remote controlled.
If you've got the choice, Lap-surgery is preferable to a conventional "open" case... the recovery time is much less. If you've ever had surgery, you know how much it hurts to have your abdomen opened... little things like coughing hurt for weeks. That said, some things require speed, exposure, room to work, and are safer if done open... your complicated aortic aneurysm repair is better done open.
BTW, the surgeon will usually reserve the right to convert the procedure to an "open" case... if you have a heavily calicified gallbladder (a so-called "porcelian gallbladder") he may have to cut you open just to get it out... only so much fits through those little trochars.
Just FYI
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Do you think cops who play Time Crisis-like games are better shootists?
I'm pretty good at lightgun games, but I've never shot a real gun, so I'm wondering...
I did my master thesis in computer science in this area. We made a system to automatically segment and visualize the vessels in the brain. One usage was for Laparoscopic surgery, albeit they mostly use the system as a pre-operation planner.
Anyway, my point is, that the methods we used for the visualization isn't that far away from what is used in modern game development. We also aimed to show as many polygons as possible, animated and shaded, on the screen at once, like modern 3D games.
The model wasn't that complex, so our home made engine had no problem viewing it in real time, but I see no problem in using a game engine such as Quakes to visualize medical data.
Underholdning.info
It's kind of a slide-show study report, so it's hard to get at all the details. But, there's room for skepticism...
Residents outweigh attending physicians 2-to-1 in this study. Wouldn't residents be more likely to be younger? Aren't younger people much more likely to have significant video game experience? I can find no place in the report that shows they controlled for age. Might the study simply be showing that "younger people have better eye-hand coordination than older people?"
Aren't most new kinds of video games and equipment (I would suppose, including laparoscopic equipment) built by young people with young eyes? Don't most older (>45) people develop farsightedness? Might the study merely be showing that "laparoscopic equipment needs to be improved for surgeons who have older eyes"?
In "Methods and Materials", I saw a quote that made me think "skill" was partially calculated by how fast the operation was performed. Might not residents who have only performed 2 actual surgeries be more likely to risk going faster, unlike experienced physicians who, with many more actual surgeries under their belt, might be more inclined towards caution? Do I really want the speed demon operating on me, or the guy who goes "slow and steady"?
Don't many video games essentially teach "it's better to be fast than right, better to keep moving than stop and think"? Is that the mindset I want in a surgeon?
It was hard to determine whether the simulator being used was closer to a video game or closer to real surgery. Might the study merely be showing that "people who are better at video games are better at surgery video games"?
This study, or at least this description of it, failed to convince me that I want a Doogie Doctor doing my next surgery. I think I'll go with the guy who has had a couple hundred successful operations over the guy who smoked him on Mortal Kombat.
Did the study take age into account? Maybe it is just that younger surgeons have better coordination, are more motivated, and just happen to be more likely to play video games. I find it hard to believe that video games improve coordination because all you do is press buttons and/or move a joystick. That's a lot different than using a scalpel.
screenshots are often taken and placed in the medical record... it's not only good documentation, it makes it harder for a disgruntled patient to come back later and sue, saying the appendix wasn't infected and the surgery wasn't necessary, etc; it's not only in the path report, it's right there in the chart in brilliant color.
Some surgeons, particularly plastic surgeons, are practically professional photographers... I've often had them come into the ER to sew faces of drunk drivers and bar-fight participants back together. The first thing they do is take a bunch of pictures. The reason why is pretty simple: A before/after picture comparison can be a real case-breaker for a plaintiff's attorney. Even with the most-expert plastic surgeon working on you, almost every wound scars to one degree or another... the before/after pics really put it into perspective for a jury.
A picture is truly worth a thousand words.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
I'm more worried about the non-gamer surgeons. If they have over 1/3 more mistakes than the gamers, what does that say for their skills and the welfare of their patients?
Remember, someone, somewhere, today, has an appointment with the doctor who graduated last in his class...
Do urologists play first-person shooter games? Only asking...
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
Last week I was having a procedure, and the surgeon was amazing. What was strange, though, was that I could swear towards the end of the procedure, I started to come out from under the anaesthetic, and I faintly heard this deep voice call out:
FRAG MONKEY!
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
Total Amputation: Kingdoms?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Do a google search for "Alan Zarkin."
He's an OB/GYN from New York who actually carved his initials into a woman's abdomen with a scalpel after doing her C-section.
I wish I'd been on the disciplinary board for that one... I'd have had his license for breakfast.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
... if games like Dr Mario are not driving doctors to prescribe more and more medecine. :)
I get so tired of the kind of conclusions papers (and politicians) derive from certain research and now /. is doing the same.
Repeat after me: correlation is NOT cauation.
As an alternative, it's perfectly possible the causation works in the other direction: surgeons who have high manual dexterity are better at games and therefore like them more. Or the two can have a common cause, like that you are better at both activities if you are very good at completely concentrating on one subject.
NEVER just accept "A implies B" from any resarch that only shows that "A is correlated with B". It
doesn;t follow AT ALL.
Your surgeons play FPS games with you? Mine are too busy to play games.
Now, I do have some of my ancillary staff that indulge in a bit of counterstrike...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
First off, there are lots of legal requirements that have nothing to do with civil malpractice lawsuits -- laws that require reporting of and documentation for cases of domestic violence, for example. There'll be similar laws that apply to your bar fights and drunk driving cases, I bet. If someone gets hit by a drunk driver, the evidence is much more likely to be used by the injured person in court against the driver, not the Doc, right?
Doctors have different motives to be taking pictures, and from their POV it's mostly going to be to help them do good work. X-ray and other diagnostic images stay in a patient's record for a while, and they're partly there to let doctors take a second look down the line, to be able to find something they might have missed -- more of a risk as far as lawsuits go than any sort of protection. With skin cancer you want to have before and after images to judge stuff like the color. Helps you decide whether it's coming back. And so on. It isn't just a "pretty simple" example of malpractice causing doctors to develop a new skill to protect themselves.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
I didn't mean to nit-pick you there... you were on the right track.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Interesting, but if you RTFA, you'd notice that this type of surgery uses buttons and a joystick, not a scalpel.
Anybody remember the Surgeon game on the Commodore Amiga? I hope that's not what they're using for video games - it could cause a problem in the OR when the Dr says: "clamp, swab, mouse...". The bit I liked the most about the game was the scream when the patient died... I hope Dr's playing this game have different motivations to me. Hmmmm, pilot's aren't allowed to fly within a certain length of time of being in a flight simulator (48 hours?)... perhaps the same should apply to Drs ;)
Other recent studies have shown that while doctors who play games are 37% less likely to make mistakes and 27% faster, there is also a 67% increased chance that they will kill someone on the operating table "just to watch them die."
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
An early Amiga 'game' (88/89?) where you had to perform an appendectomy... like Operation except more advanced (well, at the time). Patient going under? No problem, just shoot em full of Atropine... Just like being in a real hospital except little chance of contracting MRSA or being left out in the hallway for days on end... (if you have ever used the British 'Health Service' you'll know what I mean...) Kept me hooked for days....
Check out these screenshots from their high-fidelity simulator.
-el
I'm not running down plastic surgeons, I'm just telling you what they've told me. And for the record, there is nothing wrong with covering your butt, particularly in a litigation-prone field like plastics.
The reality is this: when a plastic surgeon takes care of an ER patient, it's often uncompensated, and the surgeon typically never sees that patient again after they are healed. Also, some of the antisocial types that end up needing that kind of surgical assistance can be quite litigious. If that patient comes back years down the line with some kind of legal action, the surgeon may not even remember them... so it's nice to have those pictures. No surgeon I've ever known puts them in his family album. Also, plastic surgeons are variable in their picture taking... the last case I testified in involved no pictures whatsoever.
As far as criminal courts, most plastic surgeons take pictures for their own records, not for criminal prosecution. In the case of domestic violence and sexual assault, the police take their own pictures for those... the surgeon's pictures can be challenged/thrown out in court if they're not dated, no chain of custody, no secure storage, etc.
As far as old records go, they are more of a help than a hindrance, even legally.
Finally, in the case of skin cancers, you rely on the pathology reports (or the intraoperative sections during a Mohs procedure) to tell you if the wound margins are clear... God help you if you rely on photographs for that.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Does the study account for differences in age that are bound to exist between surgeons who play video games and those who don't?
They were talking about a specific surgery, known as larthroscopic (Spelling is probably way off), which involves long stem cutting blades. 42% better than suregeons who don't play games is nice thoe. Now if they could just say the same for brain surgeons.
To me it's a no-brainer, people who practise at stuff tend to be more familar and dextrous at doing it. As the parent post points out - does this lead to a lower mortality rate? Probably not, but I would bet that a correlation exists(albeit low) between functional outcomes or decreased morbidity and video games and laparoscopic/arthroscopic surgery. i.e. the surgeon is more likely to cleanly cut the vessel, or more able to repair the ligament nicely.
N.B. it has been shown that longer OR times are related to higher incidences of infection, so a faster surgeon might have a lower infection rate.
..........FULL STOP.
Fark called, they want their link back.
--
Don't sweat the petty things, and don't pet the sweaty things.
but the whole 37% fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery thing jumped out at me, particularly the 37% part. Is it just me, or is 37 a very common percentage? For example, the other day I bought a pet-hair sticky-roller thingy that was advertised as "37% stickier", and a few days before that I saw a story on the news about how 37% more high school students this year are joining the military compared to last year. I don't recall other specific instances of 37%, but I do know that it seems to be one of the most common percentages that I do see/hear about.
This all got me to thinking about how one day in our sociology class, our professor "read" the minds of all students in the class. The exercise involved us closing our eyes and picking a vegetable, a city, and a number between 1 and 10. Carrots, New York City, and 7 were the predictions our prof made - correctly "reading" about 3/4 of the students' minds. The really weird thing is, for those who didn't pick 7, the prof suggested that perhaps they had thought of 3, which picked up most of the rest of the class. The idea is that 3 and 7 are the most common "random" numbers people think of when picking between 1 and 10, so I was wondering, (OK, I was drunk, too) if there was some relationship between the common 3 and 7 and the 37%? What do you think?
Isn't it interesting how you come to recognize posters based solely on their sigs???
but some of Napoleon's surgeons would have loved to have had access to a chainsaw.
Some of those surgeons singlehandedly did hundreds of amputations in a single day... and it wasn't exactly a gentle procedure. Four or five burly lads held you down, while the surgeon used a knife to quickly divide the soft tissues around the bone, and a bone saw to complete the amputation. A bit of cautery, and the next patient was brought forward...
Seems brutal by today's standards, but that's how lives were saved... a soldier with a gangrenous limb almost always died... a soldier with an amputation before infection could set in had a chance of survival. Remember that this was long before antibiotics were available.
Do a Google search for Jacques Lisfranc: to this day, some foot injuries are still named after him. Dominique-Jean Larrey is another name you might try.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Sorry. It's originally a Madonna song :)
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
IDDQD - God mode!
..get that quesy feeling when thinking about a surgeon named "Butch" ??
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
Exactly what I was thinking. If you have good hand/eye coordination and are a quick thinker you may gravitate towards playing video games. I you don't then you won't enjoy them as much and won't play.
but not unfamiliar...most surgeons these days get lap-scope training during their residency.
The current standard of care for many common surgeries is to do lap-scope unless you've got a compelling reason to do otherwise. Residents learn by imitation, and are trained by their attendings, so when their attendings are largely doing laparoscopic surgery, the residents will too.
As for longer instruments, it's all a matter of practice. The bronchoscope is an example that's more familiar to me... I use them during difficult intubations and to look for foreign bodies. Looking through the eyepiece while guiding the flexible tip with the control knob takes a bit of practice, and so do the the longer lap-scope instruments surgeons use.
I think hand-eye coordination is a critical skill for any surgeon to have (though judgement is probably even more critical)... anything that can sharpen it is for the good, IMHO.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
For any of you who actually know something or two about computer assisted surgery, this shouldn't come as a surprise at all. Medical doctors often use virtual-reality based surgical simulators to practice surgeries.
For an example of how medicine and video games intersect, check out Immersion Corporation for a run down of modern 3D haptics (input for computer systems other than keyboards and mice). Their medical products page gives a nice overview of modern haptic devices and applications, including endoscopes and laparoscope simulators.
Then, wonder over to the games products page, and notice which game pads and controllers use their technology. You might also be interested in noting that there are over 250 game titles which support their force-feedback gaming utilities, including Black & White, Star Wars Rogue Squadron 3D, Quake, Half Life and Madden NFL 2000.
are not so much to protect the surgeon... they're to protect the patient.
They are most often worn during total joint replacements... if that artificial joint gets infected and colonized with bacteria (one of the most-feared complications of orthopedic surgery), it cannot be sterilized with antibiotics... it must be taken out in a second operation.
Orthopedic surgery redo's are a difficult surgical challenge, particularly in the setting of infection. The space suits are for the patients, not the surgeons.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
so we have an orthopedic surgeon on slashdot as well (I presume by the spelling that you're British?) ... it's good to meet you.
I see you've already met Davak... he's an internist. I'm an ER doc myself.
I'll be sure to call you for my next arthroscopy.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
This is no surprise at all. Dexterity and coordination are a surgeon's most valuable assets, and any activity that enhances those is a huge plus.
My great-uncle was a well-known Boston cardiac surgeon. It was a funny sight to see him (a macho ex-college football player) continuously knitting sweaters, socks and hats, a fine-motor activity he said contributed tremendously to his success on the operating table... he fobbed his woolen creations off on all of us relatives constantly.
Waaaaaay back in the early '80s I read an article in OMNI magazine that talked about how shuttle astronauts that played video games were better at working with the giant robotic arm. The article used the term 'telepresence' to describe the ability.
Makes perfect sense to me that a laproscopic surgeon would benefit the same way. The whole operation is done remotely with a video camera and instruments controlled from outside the patient's body.
Even better, combine the two. Use a simulator to practice the actual surgery.
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. -- Carl Sagan
NEWSFLASH: New study shows that workers who play counterstrike for an average of 8+ hours a day work much better in corporate team situations and have a much firmer grasp of group dynamics...:D I wish... This is a fad, anything to bring justification to playing video games more. *rolls eyes*
The article doesn't say that better surgeons are better at video games, it says that surgeons who play video games are better at their jobs.
However, you're on the right track: it's possible that a third intervening variable is causing both of these (e.g., smart people both enjoy video games and are better at surgery).
Yet the fact remains that a correlation was shown, and therefore a doctor that plays video games, all other things being equal, is less likely to make mistakes than a non-gamer.
I thought it was pretty funny for what it's worth.
The article doesn't indicate whether the study used a self-selecting methodology, or conflated correlation with causality. For example, if videogame playing surgeons are a younger group (on average) than the larger group of *all* surgeons, and younger surgeons are more deft (less decrepit, more enthusiastic, more recently trained with more recent techniques, need the money more, etc) than older surgeons, then the videogames aren't causing the skill. The age factor might be stronger than in the general human population, because surgeons had been so busy in school that their group might play games less, preferring to get an "extra" hour of sleep, while surgeons might live and work longer, due to their wealth, education and access to healthcare. The better surgeons might just play more, because their skills (which show up in their surgery) help them win more games. So without the methodology that controls for all those factors, this study might be just a simulation.
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make install -not war
So, what are your scores like?
And have you ever wished for a "wall hack" while working?
(Actually, given some of the medical diagnostic tools being worked on which present the patient's data on a HUD, we are rapidly approaching the day when a wall hack WILL be available for doctors...)
www.eFax.com are spammers
That's why they need to make more farmers into surgeons. As a small farmer, I slaughter chickens, rabbits, and goats.
If you can take a bunny, break it's neck, cut off it's head, skin it, then pull out it's organs, then the sight of human blood won't be an issue.
Chickens are the bloodiest though. After you cut off their heads, their necks twist around and they flap their wings, that causes the blood to squirt out everywhere! You should see my chicken slaughtering pants!
Then again, a red-neck MD with a roll of ductape would be a scary sight.
"Nurse! I dun run outta ductape, fetch me a nudda 'un!"
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
cool!
now i can charge my gaming needs off as a professional expense. i'll make sure the hospital has consoles in the surgeons lounge so that i can "warm up" before starting surgery.
i do agree that having grown up with computer games can help your laparoscopic skills. or it could be that gamers tend to gravitate towards the surgical field, while non-gamers end up as internists.
Supreme executive power derives from a mandate from the masses, not from some farcical aquatic ceremony.
...if this means I can sue Microsoft over their bulky X-Box controller if my surgeon screws up.
Or how about this: "Ladies and Gentlemen of the jury, sure, the defendant says he plays Counterstrike four hours per week to hone his surgicial skills and he claims that's enough. But I submit to you that a lying, cheating wallhack such as the defendant isn't going to gain ANY skills that help make him a better surgeon, or a better counter-terrorist.
144l. ph34r my 133t l3g4l 5k1lz!
Ask what is the high score!
LTNS, wowbagger... how ya been?
Yes, I'd love a wallhack in my ER... one that would allow me to keep track of the restless hordes in my waiting room without having to walk out there and endure the accusing "why-the-hell-aren't-you-working-faster?" stares from all the people with non-emergent complaints.
That and a nice area-of-effect weapon for when the obligatory miscellaneous drunk guy and his buddies decide to brawl in the department...
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
Been carrying out an experiment on /. moderation - seeing if the reason I've not seen modpoints was my reading habits. I plan on doing a quick note in my journal. However, right now typing is a bit hard because I have a touch of (hopefully temporary) ulnar neropathy in my left hand - I think its from hyperextending my elbow in my sleep. My MD recommended getting a sling and sleeping in that, and I have a nerve conduction scheduled for a week from now.
The "Wall hack" I was thinking of was something along the lines of a THz imager tied to a HUD - nice to spot what's broke.
As for the annoying drunks - mix some DMSO and some capsisum and squirt'em with that! Hmm. Wonder if ipecac + DMSO would work....
But then there's that whole "Do no harm" thing....
www.eFax.com are spammers
This has probably been said already, but my guess is that surgeons who enjoy video games are more smart, adept people in general.
ulnar nerve problems can be a bit of a hobgoblin... the hand surgeons often wait as long as they can before operating on them because they sometimes don't get better after surgery (I'm thinking in particular of ulnar nerve transpositions for cubital tunnel).
Neuropathy can certainly be compressive (or diabetic, or drug-induced... there's a bunch of other possibilities). Are they sure that's why you have it? Hyperextending your elbow in your sleep is a bit odd... the most-common sleep posture is a flexor one. If you are sleeping on your back with your hands on your chest, that might do it (your elbows resting on the bed could compress the ulnar nerve... it's happened to me, in fact). YOu can find the ulnar nerve between the bony point of the elbow and that bony lump you can feel about an inch away towards the inside of your elbow). Good thing they're doing the nerve conduction study... that could be important in making the diagnosis.
Heh... As for the drunks, I've thankfully got security guards to distract them. If they're big/bad enough, I assist my security guys by injecting them with the appropriate calming agent... up to and including neuromuscular paralytics... He who has the biggest pharmacy wins.
Even if a man chops off your hand with a sword, you still have two nice, sharp bones to stick in his eyes.
...I can convince my wife right now that it's ok for me to play (hey, maybe I can even get her to play too!).
"A great democracy must be progressive or it will soon cease to be a great democracy." --Theodore Roosevelt
All those years you said I was "wasting my time" I was actually practicing to become a surgeon. NOW who's the loser? Huh? Eat THAT.
1. probably the effect of some other factor that separates the heavy video game players from others, perhaps age. Also note that both residents (younger) and older staff surgeons were involved [confounding by age?]
2. How did they determine how many time the participants spent playing video games? By questionnaire or did they measure it? [recall bias]
3. I'm sure the reported gains in the gamer group are not in fact relative risks. Even if they were, a 30% decrease may be simply due to chance in such a small study group [statistical insignificance]. A good rule of thumb is that if a study doesn't cut the risk of something at least by half, it probably isn't measuring anything at all.
4. Do the surgeons who play video games more have more manual dexterity to begin with? [confusing correlation with causation]. Perhaps we could also relate it to hours per week spent on fly-tying or birdhouse building?
5. Does this study pass the test of reasonableness? Let's see if giving the surgical residents an extra 3 hours of *sleep* a week makes them better surgeons.
Does practicing surgery make video gamers better?
THIS is the question the top Quake players are on the edge of their seats waiting to hear about...
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Mod me down, you fucking twits. Go ahead. I dare you.
(I read with sigs off.)
I picked up my mad neurosurgery skills from years of FPSs and GTA3 and GTA VC. Of course, I use bullets instead of a scalpel or saw to penetrate the skull and get to the brain, but hey...Puttin' bullets in fools' heads...chrome 2 da muthafookin' dome!!!
Minimum qualifications:
Must be licensed to practice medicine in this state
Ten or more years experience as a surgeon
1,500 hours or more lifetime video game experience
Must be available to work nights, weekends and holidays
Finished GTA3 or GTA: Vice City
U.S. Citizen
Pass drug screening
Pass Level 9, Height 5 in Tetris
Starting salary for this position is two million PP monthly.
Rank Presidents by th
Nah, I'm an American -it's just a weird quirk that we tend to use the "a" in the spelling, I guess it's kinds like a secret handshake to show who's in the club.
..........FULL STOP.
'"I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," said Dr. James "Butch" Rosser, 49, who demonstrated the results of his study I dunno about you, but I'd be a bit nervous about someone named Butch opening me up...
In the article, I noticed this interesting tidbit:
The study on whether good video game skills translate into surgical prowess was done by researchers with Beth Israel and the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University. It was based on testing 33 fellow doctors 12 attending physicians and 21 medical school residents who participated from May to August 2003.
Don't you just love the irony of a frequent critic of video games doing a stusy that proves that video games are GOOD for us after all?
BearDogg-X