Wednesday, June 20, 2007

Video Games Make Surgeons Perform Better

I would have never thought this to be true, but apparently a little video game action makes surgeons perform at their peak level.

According to MSNBC,

Researchers found that doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37 percent fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed the task 27 percent 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.


Here's how the study was conducted:
It was based on testing 33 fellow doctors — 12 attending physicians and 21 medical school residents who participated from May to August 2003. Each doctor completed three video game tasks that tested such factors as motor skills, reaction time and hand-eye coordination.


So next time you are about to go under the knife, make sure your surgeon likes Halo.

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