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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.
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
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..."
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.
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".
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'm more concerned with the surgeons who gain their 27% speed increase from performing incisions using a chainsaw instead of a scalpel myself... On the otherhand, it certainly gets the job done for amputations: Bzzzzzt! "OK, my work here is done. Stitch that up for me please, nurse..."
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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.
> What life skills are learned through car-jackings ;)
> and running over of hookers from GTA?
You obviously don't live in New York.
John.
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
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.
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.
"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.
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.
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.
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.
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.