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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.
..could be bad.
Have the media still not figured out that correlation does not necessarily imply causation?
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Finally, an excuse to post this xkcd strip:
http://xkcd.com/c218.html
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.
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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.
least three hours per week
who had never played video games before.
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There is still some room for variation between those qualifiers. Perhaps the ones who had played, but not for at least three hours a week, were not statistically significant.
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.