Giannotti, Domenico, Gregorio Patrizi, Giorgio Di Rocco, Anna Rita Vestri, Camilla Proietti Semproni, Leslie Fiengo, Stefano Pontone, Giorgio Palazzini, and Adriano Redler. 2013. “Play to Become a Surgeon: Impact of Nintendo WII Training on Laparoscopic Skills.” PLoS ONE 8 (2): 1–7. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0057372.

 

In this article, “Play to Become a Surgeon: Impact of Nintendo WII Training on Laparoscopic Skills,” the authors report on a study that looked into the effectiveness of training on the Nintendo Wii on students’ development of skills necessary for laparoscopic surgery. As described in the article, laparoscopic surgery is a type of surgery that may benefit greatly from training in video games, since the surgery procedures require viewing your actions on a screen, much like a video game, where you lose your depth perception and have a limited range of movement. The Nintendo Wii was chosen as the console on which training would be done because of its ability to control a game through movement and gestures as opposed to button presses, which more closely emulates the movements required for laparoscopic surgery.

The study found that training using the Nintendo Wii console and games chosen specifically for their relevance to the skills needed for laparoscopic surgery did have a noticeable increase in the ability of students to perform basic laparoscopic surgery tasks. The main aspects that the training with games improved was the students’ accuracy and economy of their movements. This increased accuracy also lowered the rate of complications that can be avoided with more precise and thought-out movements. Despite the success of the Nintendo Wii training, the authors do not recommend that this exact approach be used, but instead suggest that it should be used as a basis for a dedicated game meant to train prospective laparoscopic surgeons.

This article shows very strong evidence that games can be used as a training tool for surgeons. Interestingly, this study used mainstream games that anyone could purchase and play as opposed to games specifically designed for the purpose of training students. The idea of tailoring the input device to the game for the type of procedure being trained for is intriguing, and demands further thought. The article itself is very trustworthy, as it has been peer reviewed and published, and in addition, none of the authors come from a background that would give them a conflict of interest. This article should be very useful as evidence for the use of games in medical training.

Graafland, Maurits, Willem Bemelman, Marlies Schijven, Willem A Bemelman, and Marlies P Schijven. 2017. “Game-Based Training Improves the Surgeon’s Situational Awareness in the Operation Room: A Randomized Controlled Trial.” Surgical Endoscopy 31 (10): 4093–4101. doi:10.1007/s00464-017-5456-6.

 

In the article “Game-based training improves the surgeon’s situational awareness in the operation room: a randomized controlled trial,” Graafland, Bemelman, and Schijven describe their experiment testing the effectiveness of game-based training on a surgeon’s ability to identify and solve problems with equipment during an operation. The article goes through the procedures used to measure a possible difference: having a control group that only has the standard training, and an experimental group that also gets an hour of training using a serious game developed specifically for this purpose. The game consists of a fairly basic but engagin puzzle game that is interrupted by problems that the surgeon could experience with the actual equipment, after which the surgeon must notice the problem, and attempt to fix it in order to move on in the game. After the two groups completed their training, they were taken into a mock surgery to test how well they could react to technology malfunctions. In most cases, the students who had the game-based training identified the problem more often, and were also able to solve it more often. There were no cases where the opposite was true.

This article gives fairly strong evidence for serious games being a usable teaching tool for surgical students. More specifically it shows that serious games work as a supplement to standard classroom teaching. It does not support or refute the idea of using serious games as a replacement for classroom teaching. The article is peer reviewed, and published in a pediatric radiology journal. The journal reports that there are no conflicts of interest for any of the contributors. This article appears very trustworthy, and will likely be my main source of evidence towards games being used as a teaching tool in the medical field.

Courtier, Jesse, Emily Webb, Andrew Phelps, David Naeger, Emily M Webb, Andrew S Phelps, and David M Naeger. 2016. “Assessing the Learning Potential of an Interactive Digital Game versus an Interactive-Style Didactic Lecture: The Continued Importance of Didactic Teaching in Medical Student Education.” Pediatric Radiology 46 (13): 1787–96. doi:10.1007/s00247-016-3692-x.

 

In the Article “Assessing the learning potential of an interactive digital game versus an interactive-style didactic lecture: the continued importance of didactic teaching in medical student education,” the authors describe their study investigating radiology students’ performance and satisfaction of lecture teaching and interactive game teaching. Students were split up into two groups, one of which had a one hour lecture about a few key radiology topics. The other group was given an interactive, competitive Tic-Tac-Toe game that covered the same material. Both groups were then given an examination afterwards, as well as asked a few questions regarding their satisfaction with the method of learning they were assigned.

The group given the interactive, competitive game scored lower on the examination on average than those in the lecture group. The game group also reported lower satisfaction on average with their ability to learn through the format. This contradicts the researchers’ hypothesis, as they had expected students to both learn and enjoy more the game learning style. The students reported that they would prefer a game learning style to a non-interactive lecture, but would prefer an interactive lecture to both of those options.

This study is a solid example of a case where you should not use serious games to teach. It shows that replacing a traditional lecture format with interactive games does not help the students learn. However, it does not say anything about the efficacy of using serious games as a supplement to a standard lecture format. The game described in this study also lacks many of the more complex and enjoyable features of the games used in the other studies I have cited, so that may play into the students’ lack of engagement. It is important to have a well designed game in order to keep students engaged with the material. This article was peer-reviewed and published in a pediatric radiology journal. The authors did not have any reported conflict of interest. This article will serve as an excellent case of how one should not bring games into an academic setting.

Gorbanev, Iouri, Sandra Agudelo-Londoño, Rafael A. González, Ariel Cortes, Alexandra Pomares, Vivian Delgadillo, Francisco J. Yepes, and Óscar Muñoz. 2018. “A Systematic Review of Serious Games in Medical Education: Quality of Evidence and Pedagogical Strategy.” Medical Education Online 23 (1): 1. doi:10.1080/10872981.2018.1438718.t

 

In the article “A systematic review of serious games in medical education: quality of evidence and pedagogical strategy,” the authors describe their study that attempted to determine the strength of evidence towards serious games being a helpful tool for medical education, and the strategy that games meant for this purpose employed. The study found that the evidence supporting the usefulness of games in medical education was moderate. Behaviorism and Cognitivism are the two leading pedagogical strategies in these games, and the games tend to be meant as a supplementary tool to classroom education, not a replacement for it.

However, the attempts to use serious games as part of medical education were spread across many different medical fields, including the emergency room, physiology, surgery, and forensics. Most of the games were meant to be used in a classroom setting. The goals of these games were not all the same. Some aimed to give the students knowledge or perceptions, while others focused on teaching skills.

The articles this study analyzed came from 2011-2015, so the data is already somewhat dated, considering the very rapid advancement of gaming technology and obsolescence of old tech. However, this does leave the door open for stronger evidence of the validity or invalidity of games as a medical education tool today. The information on the pedagogical approach used in these games is not particularly useful for my research, as I am not trying to make a game of my own, but trying to determine whether games in general can be used in this context effectively.

Egol, Kenneth A., Ran Schwarzkopf, John Funge, Jeremy Gray, Christopher Chabris, Thomas E. Jerde, and Eric J. Strauss. 2017. “Can Video Game Dynamics Identify Orthopaedic Surgery Residents Who Will Succeed in Training?” International Journal of Medical Education 8 (January): 123–25. doi:10.5116/ijme.58e3.c236.

 

In “Can video game dynamics identify orthopaedic surgery residents who will succeed in training?,” the authors discuss the use of analysis of someone’s activity in a video game for predicting their success in orthopaedic surgery training. The article begins by explaining the need for a way to predict the successfulness of a resident before they are admitted into training, because the candidates who are most likely to succeed should be the ones admitted to the program. Currently, the process for screening applicants is mostly based on interviews and CV reviews, which are subjective, and can vary between institutions. Having a more consistent way to rank candidates would be extremely helpful in the decision-making process. This article proposes that video games could be the objective ranking mechanism that these post-graduate institutions are looking for.

The game this study used was Wasabi Waiter, and by analyzing different components of each candidate’s actions in the game, they were able to find correlations to psychological traits of those people. Being able to identify these traits can be helpful in two ways. First, it has been proposed that certain personality types are attracted to certain medical careers, and being able to identify someone’s personality type could predict whether they would be successful in a particular medical career. Second, psychological predispositions to burnout could also be identified before the resident started having problems, allowing for earlier intervention if problems started to arise.

This article proposes video games as an assessment tool in medical education, rather than an instructional one. This is not an approach I had considered, but makes a great deal of sense after reading the description given by the authors of this article. Video games, being computer applications, are easy to monitor for patterns in the user’s input, which makes them good for testing instinctual reactions. These sorts of reactions could make or break someone’s medical career, so being able to tell if someone has the correct reactions would be very helpful for ranking prospective candidates. This article was written primarily by people in the Orthopaedic surgery or psychology fields, but two of the authors are part of a corporation that produces aptitude-testing games, which may introduce a bias. However, this type of examination of games’ ability to examine residents’ future success would not be possible without professionals in the gaming field.

This is a research page for Composition 200, looking into the uses for serious games, or video games meant to teach, in a medical education environment, especially surgery. About Me