ScienCentral News, NY
03-06-07
Video Game Surgeons
Video games have been linked to problems like bad grades and violent behavior.
But as this ScienCentral News video reports, a new study suggests that video
games might also make surgeons better at their jobs.
"The Nintendo Surgeon"
Step into the training room of Butch Rosser's laparoscopic surgery department at
Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, and one thing immediately catches your
eye: video games.
"Mine is a interesting lab," he says. "Where along with the laparoscopic training
instruments, virtual reality training instruments and all this other research
technology all in one place, you have an X-Box, a Playstation 2, side by side with
these medical-related items."
He put them there because of the unique skills needed for the modern minimallyinvasive surgery known as laparoscopic surgery. Also known as "keyhole
surgery," it is performed by inserting instruments through very small incisions.
One instrument has a camera and fiber-optic light, while other instruments are
the surgical tools used to operate.
Surgeons
Trainees manipulating "joysticks" during a laparoscopic training course Rosser
created called "Top Gun."
"You look at a television screen and you hold these instruments that are two feet
long just like joysticks, and [you're] performing these operations from the outside
while manipulating the body's internal organs on the inside," says Rosser. He
adds, "This environment is more like navigating through a video game
environment than traditional surgery."
The similarities really hit Rosser several years ago when a journalist watched a
laparoscopic case of his and then referred to him as "the Nintendo surgeon."
"Now that just hit me when I read that," he recalls. "And I said, 'Well I am a
gamer, all the way back to the days of pong. Is that why I can do this a little
better than the average bear? Is that why this seems so natural to me?'"
Wanting to know just how much video game experience affects laparoscopic
performance, Rosser led a study of surgeons and surgical residents who took a
laparoscopic training course he created called Top Gun. He compared surgeons
who said they played video games at least three hours a week to those who
never played.
Rosser Study
Rosser reported that in training tasks like this one, the video gamers made 37%
fewer errors and worked 27% faster.
As he and others reported in the journal Archives of Surgery, the gamers
performed significantly better. They made 37% fewer errors, worked 27% faster,
and scored 42% higher overall on the training task.
With only 33 surgeons involved, the study was a small one. Also, an "invited
critique" of the study notes, "This study does not indicate that good Top Gun
scores decrease deaths or increase patient safety."
But Rosser thinks the results are profound enough to recommend that surgeons
start using video games the way athletes use a weight room.
"The results were really astounding ... even more than I thought from an intuitive
standpoint," Rosser says. "The ones that [played video games] three hours a
week, they did well. The ones that did not play, they struggled. Now these are
still surgeons and surgical residents though!"
Tempered Enthusiasm
While Rosser and his co-authors are encouraged by the results, they also point
out in their paper that "indiscriminate video game play is not a panacea." They
point out that there have been plenty of other studies on the negative impact of
video games, which have been linked to poor performance in school, obesity,
and even aggressive behavior in kids. One of Rosser's co-authors,
psychologist Douglas Gentile of Iowa State University, has conducted
several of the studies mentioned on the negative impacts of video games.
Rosser Researcher
Butch Rosser, Beth Israel Medical Center, NY
"Most kids play for much more than 3 hours a week, and several studies
demonstrate that increased time playing games predicts poorer school
performance," Gentile says. "That's taking away time from their reading, it's
taking away time from their homework, it's taking away time from exploring or
creating, or any of a number of other things that might be useful for their
academic achievement." He notes that the American Academy of Pediatrics
recommends no more than one to two hours per day of total "screen time" -including TV, video games, movies/DVDs, and recreational computer use. "So
parents should not view this study as a reason to allow children to spend a lot of
time with video games," he says.
Rosser agrees that while video games might help make him a better surgeon, he
still needed good grades to become one in the first place.
"I say to the kids out there that Butch Rosser would not be here in this capacity if
he played video games and did not have good grades, did not develop
perseverance," Rosser says. "And I would say to that child out there that thinks
that they've got a free pass to play video games carte blanche, I say 'No, sadly
mistaken!'"
But he hopes studies like his will help people realize that video games can be put
to good use.
"I would tell the parents and the politicians alike that it's their responsibility to not
let this be a visceral response to a grassroots issue," he says. "That we all
should prepare ourselves to understand the entire world of video games so we
don’t create a 21st century witch hunt. And remember this: all video games are
not created equal."
The study was published in the February 2007 edition of Archives of Surgery; no
outside funding was provided.