October 7, 2016By Lance Baily

Video Games Improve Performance for Surgeons

Recently Reuters reported on research highlighting how “video games can improve fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, visual attention, depth perception and computer competency”. Article excerpt:



Video game skills translated into higher scores on a day-and-half-long surgical skills test, and the correlation was much higher than the surgeon’s length of training or prior experience in laparoscopic surgery, the study said. Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played video games at least three hours per week made 37 percent fewer errors, performed 27 percent faster, and scored 42 percent better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before. “It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills,” said Iowa State University psychology professor Douglas Gentile, one of the study’s authors.

“Video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons,” senior author Dr. James Rosser of Beth Israel said. It supports previous research that video games can improve “fine motor skills, eye-hand coordination, visual attention, depth perception and computer competency,” the study said. “Video games may be a practical teaching tool to help train surgeons,” senior author Dr. James Rosser of Beth Israel said.


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