Surgery is tense business, where one person’s life is literally in someone else’s hands, and where even the slightest slip-up could have critical results. Fortunately, some surgeons in a Florida hospital have found a proven effective way to unwind before performing big procedures.
A recent study conducted by Celebration Health hospital in Florida shows that physicians and surgeons who played video games for six minutes prior to taking part in a virtual surgery managed better outcomes with fewer errors. This comes from the Orlando Sentinel {link no longer active}.
The study was conducted by general surgeon Dr. James “Butch” Rosser, who experimented with 300 surgeons and found that half fared better in their procedures after playing games, which included Sega’s Super Monkey Ball, compared to those who did not.
“Surgeons who had played video games in the past for more than three hours per week made 37-percent fewer errors, were 27-percent faster and scored 26-percent better overall than surgeons who never played video games,” the study found. “It is the error reduction that will have the most significant impact on patient safety.”
No word yet if the practice will be tried at other hospitals.
Source: Digital Trends
