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Play Wii, Become a Better Surgeon
drew30319 writes "NPR reports that a team of researchers at the University of Rome required a group of surgical residents to play video games on a Nintendo Wii for an hour a day, five days a week, for four weeks resulting in 'statistically better' performance than a control group for laparoscopic skills. The study includes some interesting stats (e.g. while the control group showed a 10% improvement in accuracy, the Wii-playing group's accuracy improved by 83%). The study's authors add that '[t]he Nintendo Wii may be adopted in lower-budget Institutions or at home by younger surgeons to optimize their training on simulators before performing real procedures.'"
Wouldn't they improve even more by practicing with real laparoscopes?
No sig today...
They were probably playing Trauma Center...
So, spending 5 hours a day practicing precision hand/eye coordination tasks... makes you better at work which requires precision hand/eye coordination tasks...
I suppose my question would be - how does playing a Wii game compare to another task which involves hand/eye coordination? e.g. sewing cross stitch, soldering electronic components, playing tennis ?
Would universities be better requiring medical students to play tennis each day or take up cross stitch than playing Wii? or doing work experience controlling those cameras that mole through sewerage pipes?
As they say in TFPaper, this can only be considered as a pilot study due to the limited size and make up of their particiant group and limits on their methodology. As such to say 'Play wii and become a better surgeon' is a bit premature. You could say "We've found a link between playing Wii and improvement in surgical scores, give us cash so we can find out precisely what it is".
An example of this is that they have no way of telling whether the improvement is due to the Wii training, or due to the possibilty that forcing people who are in high stress occupations to take an hours break a day might improve performance by lowering stress levels. (My thinking here being that doing these training simulations on the wii is sufficiently different to seem like a break to them). They could have done with a second control group who were just playing wii tennis, or reading a book or some such to account for that. Of course, that would require more participants, of which they had a limited number; hence this is only a pilot study.
They are playing regular games with 3D coordination requirements like shooting balloons from planes and so on.
Playing games was shown to enhance visual acuity and coordination some time ago, but this study shows it improves performance in Virtual Laparoscopy training stats.
Posted 4/7/2004 7:05 AM : http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-04-07-surgeons-video-games_x.htm
Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37% less mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27% faster than their counterparts who did not play video games.
"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.
Interesting paper on it here, from 2011
http://mcm.dhhq.health.mil/Libraries/NewsDocuments/Medical_Simulation.sflb.ashx
"I just wanted you to know before we put you under and I begin the surgery that I was the all-time champ in Super Mario World among my fellow students at Harvard Medical School. Rest assured."
I suspect the game time contributed significantly to the positive results, but as the TED talk explains, we still are trying to understand which game aspects are the good and which are the bad.
That is pretty much the point I was making; the paper shows quite nicely that their intervention does help, but they haven't enough data to say why it helps with any great certainty. If they know why then they can focus on that part and possibly make it even more effective, or incorporate that facet into other methods.
btw... how does one get involved in a study to play video games? and can I get paid for it?
Yes, you can get paid for it, and look to your nearest university's psychology department. They tend to advertise current studies in posters around the campus and university job agencies (i.e. those aimed at getting students some part time work).
They won't always be playing computer games; from what I have seen there tends to be a range of topics, including things such as "watch this and press a button when", "eat this chocolate then do this" and a fair bit of "fill in this survey". Some of them include "and then let me MRI scan your brain" for flavour.
I can't figure out the identity of the third game, and it doesn't list a publisher. It mentions
Battle at high altitude is set in an archipelago: the player moves his aircraft with 20 balloons attached to the tail and the goal is to stay with as many balloons as possible within 3 minutes or to burst the opponent's balloons. This game requires precision of movements and an excellent 3D visualization rather than other skills.
Has anyone heard of this game before?
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
Would universities be better requiring medical students to play tennis each day or take up cross stitch than playing Wii?
As a conscientious surgeon dedicated to excellency in my chosen vocation, I'm willing to do absolutely anything to improve the lives of my patients, except knit or take exercise.
how many pairs of boxer shorts should you own?
Now just need to port Surgeon Simulator 2013 to the Wii
You're an idiot. Laproscopy (the technique in question) is essentially telepresence surgery. You hold small tools with a camera attached to a long, maneuverable tube. Your tools are also attached to long tubes, and you're basically watching yourself do the surgery on TV. The wii is also telepresence. You hold controls and your character on screen reacts. Laproscopy uses almost exclusively your eyes and fine motor control in the hands. The wii is obviously an ideal corollary in the video game world.
I don't see how anyone voted the parent interesting when he suggests tennis might help. Even his sewing and soldering suggestions involve direct observation and manipulation, as opposed to the wii's telepresence manipulation.