Playing video games on the NintendoWii can help surgeons improve hand-eye coordination and should be used to enhance their training, according to a new study.
A group of postgraduate surgeons at the University of Rome were put on a month-long programme of gaming using the Nintendo’s Wii console.
Researchers then compared their performance with doctors who had not spent an hour a day playing games.
Those that had been playing with the Wii scored significantly higher as a group in simulated tasks designed to test the skills needed for laparascopy, or keyhole surgery.
The authors of the report, writing in the scientific journal PLOS One, said that using the Wii could become a "helpful, inexpensive and entertaining part of the training of young laparoscopists in addition to a standard surgical education based on simulators and the operating room."
The study follows on from others that have used video games in an attempt to hone surgeons’ skills.
In 2007, a study by New York’s Beth Israel Medical Center found that doctors who regularly played video games made 37 per cent fewer mistakes and were 27 quicker in tests.
The authors of the new study believe that Wii, with its three-dimensional game play, is particularly suited to the skills of keyhole surgery because "compared to open surgery, laparoscopy presents different difficulties such as limited motion range of instruments [and] loss of depth perception."
The study used three games — Wii Tennis, Wii Table Tennis and a balloon warfare game called High Altitude Battle — chosen for their "high demands of eye-hand coordination, movement precision, depth perception and 3D visualisation."
They admitted that academic institutions may have some resistance to the introduction of video games consoles into their training.
The authors concluded the report by saying they hoped the consoles "may be adopted in lower-budget institutions or at home by younger surgeons to optimise their training on simulators before performing real procedures."