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.
Medical Game Education 