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Gaming Skills Directly Linked to Surgical Skills
Orinthe writes "According to Reuters, a new study involving 33 surgeons at a New York hospital shows 'a strong correlation between video game skills and a surgeon's capabilities'. A statement by the senior author of the study even suggests the use of video games as a training tool for surgeons. Another of the study's authors cautions parents to curb excessive gaming, however: 'spending that much time playing video games is not going to help their child's chances of getting into medical school'."
New job opportunities for me.. and I haven't even taken bio.
Trauma Center really is a training sim. When GUILT appears, there will be legions of gamers, ready to fight it.
The criticism that was also given after the article raises from valid points. Mainly whether the "mistakes" that were being counted have any effect on the clinical outcome and whether the the speed of the fastest surgeons indicate better skills or whether it indicated that they were not thinking of the test as a video game and not as a simulation of a procedure on a person.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
Children who participate in an activity that encourages fine motor controls, a steady hand, spatial awareness, the ability to assimilate new information rapidly and a requirement to perform under pressure in an actual win/lose environment (increasingly rare both in schools and in more traditional orgnised childhood pursuits) tend to increase their aptitutde for a profession that requires the same skills. At the same time, children who focus on said activity to the exclusion of all else put themselves at a big disadvantage.
Not exactly surprising, is it?
With games, as with everything else, the key message is always moderation. A 16-hours-a-day World of Warcraft addict is no more suited to be a surgeon than a steroidally enhanced jock, but just as a measure of sporting prowess can be helpful for some career paths, so the skills you learn from gaming can be of use elsewhere.
Rueters is a Wii astroturfing organization and this is just a thinly veiled Trauma ER marketing atttmept. (yes, I'm kidding)
Maybe all that time I spend in front of Trauma Center is a good thing!
..could be bad.
Have the media still not figured out that correlation does not necessarily imply causation?
Le français vous intéresse?
Finally, an excuse to post this xkcd strip:
http://xkcd.com/c218.html
Can someone say ISTP (or ISFP)?
Sheesh, this is news? Meyers Briggs could have told you this in the 40s-60s, Keirsey from 70-90s. It's a personality type, that's all.
Have you read my journal today?
I'm in favor of surgeons gaming in their spare time, so long as my surgeon is fully aware that I don't have a reset button or a save state.
Slashdot Burying Stories About Slashdot Media Owned
It seems that this is just reinforcing what has already been shown in the past. Video games or computer simulations have been used for decades to train pilots and soldiers. It only stands to reason that a profession which requires one to carry out a complex series of precise actions, as well as make decisions in a rapidly evolving environment (since just about anything can go wrong in surgery) could be aided through the use of video games.
"Si vis pacem para bellum" -Publius Flavius Vegetius Renatus
I for one welcome our new, Mountain Dew and Cool Ranch Dorito consuming, surgical overlords!
Wise men say, "Forgiveness is divine, but never pay full price for late pizza."
i work for a surgical research center and minimally invasive robotic surgery will change everything. we use da vincis to do proofs of concept on cadavers and live animals, and the technology is no where near ready for prime time, but the possibilities are really cool.
the control console and the robot don't have to be in the same place, so it will be possible to perform surgery with the patient in a completely sterile field without all the people that are usually necessary in a traditional OR. the graspers are currently the size of a finger and are articulated like a wrist, so doctors have greater range of motion in smaller spaces (smaller incisions mean less risk of infections, less pain, and faster recovery times). it will also be possible to perform surgery remotely (telemedicine) which is ideal for military and disaster relief scenarios. nasa is interested in telesurgery for space missions where it's not always possible to turn around and go back. it will also be possible to have a surgery mentored remotely by an expert (telementoring) so developing countries can get better access to advanced medicine.
sarcasm:
-noun
1. harsh or bitter derision or irony.
ok, so the test examined *correlation* between gaming skills and:
"Laparoscopy and related surgeries involve manipulating instruments through a small incision or body opening where the surgeon's movements are guided by watching a television screen."
What's not clear:
1. if there is causation (games improved some skills) - do each activity just attract slightly obsessive individuals that happen to do best at each profession?
2. if just as much benefit could be gained from a few hours a week of using a mouse - sounds like the major skill here is
just being able to relate activity on a monitor to activity with your hand.
3. how much of a surgeon's professional skills this represents - that is, what about diagnostics, knowledge of techniques,
communication, etc? I'm guessing that playing WoW doesn't contribute much to a surgeon's knowledge of anatomy...
Does being a skilled surgeon make you better at video games?
...if the writers of Scrubs is paying attention to this. It could be added to the next season. :)
Time for some basic math: 9 + 15 = 24. The study had 33 participants. Where are the other 9 doctors? Why aren't they mentionned? Were their results not compatible with the findings of the study?
Maybe someone has a link to the actual findings instead of a Reutres Life article.
...fraggin' for the very first time! */wierd al*
You constantly struggle for self improvement - and it shows.
Hooray for bad Engrish on fortune cookies
I can see it now... Gaming Skills Directly Linked to Cutting People Open!
So essentially they proved that video games improved surgeons' scores on objective measures of laparoscopic skill but the objective measures of laparoscopic skill have yet to be shown to improve surgical outcome.
P.S. - for those too lazy to read the article, the video games they used were Super Monkey Ball 2 (Gamecube), Star Wars Racer Revenge (PS2), and Silent Scope (Xbox). Sorry, no Trauma Center...
This guy is set.
Gears of war players would make great surgeons! With the chainsaws and everything, yes sir!
As part of my surgical clerkship in medical school, I in on an endotracheal surgery, where a camera was basically pushed into the bronchi and then tools manipulated in view of the camera. The fellow was doing the procedure under the guidence of the attending. During the procedure, the attending hat to keep reminding the fellow about keeping the camera centered and how the tip only moved on 1 axis and how you had to rotate the entire appratus to get 2d motion and so on. After the procedure, the attening literally asked if the fellow had ever played video games before. I could see the point, as if I could see the points that the attending was getting, it was more or less like flying down the death star trench. I would think that video games can help during camera assisted or laprascopic procedures since your actions are not exactly correlated to your view of the operating field; your camera is rotated at different angles and you need to be able to construct the entire field in your mind in order to know what actions are needed from the input on the moniter. Just like when playing video games, your actions are not directly translated into the game. Wii excluded, if you want to swing a sword, you push a button on the controller, essentially you learn to input a different action in order to accomplish what you want on screen, which is kind of what laproscopic surgery is. Like if you want the instrumented rotated to the right on the screen, you have to be able to analyze the picture on the monitor and perhaps realize that a move to the right on the screen is really a move to the left with your hand.
The one you should really be posting is this one from VG Cats :-)
"All your internal organ are belong to us!"
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
I believe that the Da Vinci machines are being used in some limited settings on regular human patients. Specifically, my father is a private practice urologist and I'm pretty sure he's been performing Da Vinci prostatectomies (removing the prostate) for a year or so.
"Just because you're eloquent doesn't mean you aren't a fucking crackpot." -Wavebreak
"Dr... he's... he's gone Dr..... His poor kids.... OMG Dr, what the hell are you doing?!"
"Huh, why Teabagging him of course!"
Healer LFG brain trauma!
Now if we could just stop them from amputating people's limbs and reattaching them to their backs without anaesthesia when all they needed was a blood transfusion, we'd be all set in the world of medicine.