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Medical Students Open To Learning With Video Games

Posted by Soulskill on from the fragging-diseases dept.

Gwmaw writes "A reported 98 percent of medical students surveyed at the University of Michigan and University of Wisconsin-Madison liked the idea of using technology to enhance their medical education, according to a study published online in BMC Medical Education. For example, a virtual environment could help medical students learn how to interview a patient or run a patient clinic. In the survey, 80 percent of students said computer games can have an educational value."

4 of 46 comments (clear)

  1. Biased Survey by stephanruby · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Of course, the medical students would say that, I bet that business students would say the same thing about computer games for their field as well. Who doesn't like games? In any case, we know this method is attractive, now the real question is, can we make games that are good enough for those students to learn anything? And to some extent, I think that we will be able to, but only partly I believe. Making a good game is still mostly more an art than a science, and making a good game that will actually teach something will be doubly difficult.

  2. But they already do use these... by williamhb · · Score: 3, Informative

    This seems like an unsurprising result given that a lot of medical students already use simulations in their training (everything from haptic simulators for laproscopic surgery, to mannekins that can be hooked up to medical equipment and have an operation performed on them, to role-play scenariors with actors playing the patients). Indeed there are plenty of companies selling video-based simulation equipment, and whole medical conferences on medical simulation for training.

    In other news, 98% of golfers thought it might be helpful to practice their putting.

  3. "Open to"... by 0100010001010011 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I am 'open to' having sex with beautiful women to enhance my medical education. For example, sex with beautiful women could help me learn female anatomy, or how to run a patient clinic.

    Of course I'll need government funding. 4 years and $1M should do it. I'll write a great thesis too to determine if any of the above is actually true.

  4. University of Wisconsin by incripshin · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Ugh, can we please stop appending '–Madison' to the name of the university? Nobody says 'University of Minnesota–Twin Cities'. I know nobody will listen :(.

    -Markus Peloquin, University of Wisconsin