Nintendo Surgeons: Video Games Help Surgeons to Be More Precise

It seems that playing video games can help surgeons to be more precise and make less mistakes in certain kinds of surgery. "I use the same hand-eye coordination to play video games as I use for surgery," Dr. James "Butch" Rosser from Beth Israel Medical Center told USA Today. Studies show that playing video games actually does have an effect on a surgeon’s performance in the operating room. Reuters Life! states that those surgeons who played video games, specifically a Nintendo Gamecube game called Super Monkey Ball, three hours a week made 37 percent fewer errors and accomplished tasks 27 percent faster, while also scoring 42 percent higher on the skills tests. These statistics were made using 33 surgeons doing surgical skills tests in laparoscopic surgery.

Wired records Rosser as saying "Traditional academic surgeons look at what I do and thumb their noses," at the first Video Game/Entertainment Industry Technology and Medicine Conference. Even though previous research has stated that, "fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, visual attention, depth perception and computer competency,” are affected. Few academics are willing to share in Rosser’s view of video games as training tools. This study, however, may start to turn some heads and change some minds. Even now in response to this study, some games that are specifically targeted at surgeons are being developed specifically as training tools. Even in the commercial field, some games like Trauma Center are making a showing in surgery related games.

However, studies were also quick to show that this is not an excuse to let a child play video games for nine hours at day. The study mentioned that surgeons played for 3 hours a week, and that letting a child play video games in no way made them more prone to get into medical school. Playing video games helps surgeons to improve their already existing skills, not create surgery skills on the spot.

On another note, in the military, they are even making a virtual simulation called STATCare that helps to train combat medics in a multitude of tasks they would need in the field. While the program is not technically a video game and does not really respond as one, the developers are trying to make it significantly more game like. There is another program that is being developed for medical use called The Journey to Wild Divine that relies on biofeedback. While more of a meditation and spiritual simulation, the biofeedback could be used in all sorts of medical tasks and simulations.

It seems that laparoscopic surgery especially would be affected by video game skills since surgeons do not handle the actual tools, but manipulate them with a computer in a micro incision. As this type of surgery becomes more and more popular, video game training will probably become more and more popular. It may also lead to using video game training for other types of surgeons as test results keep coming in pointing to a correlation between video game playing and increases hand-eye coordination.

All this publicity in the medical world about video games has really changed how some people view them. Some hospitals like Beth Israel Medical Center are encouraging their surgeons to play video games for a few hours a week to hone their eye-hand coordination skills, and help them to warm up before a surgery. As Rosser says, “You have to be a Nintendo Surgeon.” Video games have been shown to be relevant in many other aspects of life rather than just entertainment. They are a very versatile art form that can be utilized for improving many areas of society. I hope that through all these sorts of studies, the stigma of video games being only for a certain demographic can be thrown off and that game companies will start to make games that appeal to a wider audience and for wider purposes.