Study: Videos Games Prove Beneficial For Surgeons

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Does your surgeon play videos games? Well you may want to hope so, says a study recently published in Archives of Surgery.

According to the study, there was a strong correlation found between video game skills and the ability to perform laparoscopic surgical maneuvers.

Laparoscopy requires surgeons to navigate equipment through a small incision while they watch their maneuvers on a monitor.

The result of the study revealed that of the 33 doctors participating in the study 9 of them played videos games for at least three hours per week.

The results revealed that those 9 doctors made fewer errors, performed faster, and scored better in surgical skills tests than surgeons who'd never played video games before.

"It was surprising that past commercial video game play was such a strong predictor of advanced surgical skills," Iowa State University psychology professor and one of the study's authors Douglas Gentile told Reuters.

Numerous studies including one performed by The University of Toronto show that video games, particularly action games like Call of Duty, do in fact improve and sharpen sensorimotor skills that are very important for surgeons using laparoscopic and other robotic surgical techniques.

Doctors stress that this study does not give parents the green-light to let their children play video games to their heart's content.

Gentile told Reuters, "spending that much time playing video games is not going to help their child's chances of getting into medical school."