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Aug
10

Wii will develop surgical skills

This is old hat for most gamers, but one always likes to see the overwhelming evidence.

The idea of using games to train doctors is nothing new; a study in 2007 also showed that doctors who spent time playing video games showed better performance in laparoscopic tests than even doctors with more experience in those procedures. The test used three games, Super Monkey Ball 2, Star Wars Racer Revenge, and Silent Scope, to "score" doctors on their gaming skills, and the correlation was strong: the surgeons who scored in the top third in those games performed surgical tests in 40 percent less time, with 50 percent fewer errors. The next time you're going under the knife, it might be smart to see what games your doctors play. If they say Solitaire, get a second opinion.

Full article on Ars Technica.

posted at 4:06 PM

Comments

Eeek! You've apparently never taken a class in logic. I read the original article, and being very tired of gamers trying to constantly justify their infatuations, I'm stomping:

I didn't see the stats, the causality wasn't proved, and having successfully performed micro- and brain- surgery for years, in addition to abdominal implants (albeit on rodents...hehe), I"m not impressed with the laparoscopy reference and its association to gaming. Some surgeons are just better than others anyway, and laparoscopy is crude.

Yabu[TypeKey Profile Page] | Aug 13, 2008 at 4:46 PM

Fair enough... I admit to having never taken a logic class and that I glossed over the lack of hard numbers and/or graphs, etc.

But I do take issue with the idea that gamers are trying to "constantly justify their infatuations". As a gamer, I don't feel that it's necessary for me to "justify" my interest in my particular hobbies. I merely linked this article because I thought (perhaps inaccurately?) that it was an example of one of my favorite pasttimes being conceivably useful for more than just entertainment value. As ever, it's really up to the reader to decide.

On the other hand... I don't actually find it all that farfetched that gamers might have better hand-eye coordination than the average joe as a result of their "habit", so maybe that leaves me more willing to believe the article's claims.

Cynthia Nie[TypeKey Profile Page] | Aug 14, 2008 at 12:45 AM

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