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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.'"
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.
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
That sounds good, but it's not so true. Those games desensitize people to gunshots and similar cues, but real blood is totally different. Especially up-close-and-personal, real blood is much more disturbing.
They get desensitized to that because they are surgeons; the games don't count for shit.
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.
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.
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.