People started researching the relationship between playing video games and surgery years ago, but I thought that it would be interesting to continue to spread the word about this finding–especially to the gamers out there who need an excuse to continue to play more video games during their day.
That’s right, researchers have found that the doctors who spent at least three hours a week playing video games made about 37% fewer mistakes in surgery. They also completed the surgery tasks 27% faster than the people who did not play video games. Granted that the people who played the video games could have convinced themselves mentally that they were better and faster, but these percentages are pretty significant. Also, this relationship between video games and surgery deals with the surgeries that require the doctors to watch a screen and use a tiny camera/instruments that are controlled my joysticks outside of the body. These are the surgeries that use the same hand-eye coordination skills needed in video games. The medical term for surgeries that require the use of a joystick to control what is going on during the surgery is “laparoscopic surgery.”
One study that was done to see if video game skills carry over to good laparoscopic surgery skills was done in 2003 at Beth Israel Medical Center and the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University. During the study, each of the 33 doctors completed three video game tasks that tested abilities, such as reaction time, hand-eye coordination, and motor skills. They found that there is a relationship between surgery and playing video games.
Video games allow people to develop a sense of timing, touch, reaction, and more. They also teach users how to manipulate a person/creature/object in an environment–this is a skill that surgeons need.
So, the next time someone tells you to stop playing video games, try telling them that you’re going to be a surgeon.
