Are Video Games Good Practice for Surgeons?

Newswires and the blogosphere were atwitter this week over results of a study published in Archives of General Surgery that indicated physicians with video game experience performed better at laparoscopic surgeries than those without video game experience.

Not mentioned much in the news coverage was the fact that only 33 surgeons were studied. This low number will no doubt lead to calls for additional experiments before any strong conclusions can be considered. Indeed, the journal published an accompanying critique that cautioned against too much optimism concerning the results. Nonetheless, the findings were interesting enough to grab the attention of the general public. Several news outlets carried the story including CNN, the Washington Post, Reuters, and others.

Quote of interest from the paper: “Surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, were 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better overall than surgeons who never played video games … Current video game players made 32 percent fewer errors, were 24 percent faster, and scored 26 percent better overall than their nonplayer colleagues.”

Laparoscopic surgery involves fine hand-eye control with surgeons observing progress through monitors. Testing for speed and accuracy was performed on simulators designed to help train physicians for the procedure.

The authors also tested the surgeons on various arcade-style games, maintaining that surgeons with superior laparoscopic skills were better at video games than surgeons who were less skilled in laparoscopic surgery. In this way, they attempted to show the opposite of their findings is also true. Good at surgery = good at video games; good at video games = good at surgery. In this they succeeded, measuring the physicians at play using the games Super Monkey Ball 2, Star Wars Racer Revenge, and Silent Scope.

As I’ve pointed out elsewhere in this blog, by necessity the study used an easy to measure approach. In this case, the researchers took the tack of measuring mistakes made during simulated surgery, then comparing scores on traditional arcade games. The authors conclude that video games may be a good addition to medical training regimens.

Just as we have seen the ongoing adoption of video games in military circles, the study shows that video games are excellent for medical training purposes. It brings up the old training versus learning debate. With educational objectives, the benefits of video games remain more difficult to measure. Nonetheless, positive news on benefits of video games is a welcome relief from the usual salacious fare offered up by the media.

References

Rosser, J.C., Lynch, P.J, Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D.A., Klonsky, J., Merrell, R. (2007, February). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st Century. Archives of Surgery, 142(2). 181-186.

Curet, M.J. (2007, February). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st century—Invited critique. Archives of Surgery, 142(2). 186.

An online version of the article is available by subscription here:
http://archsurg.ama-assn.org/cgi/reprint/142/2/181