Surgeons and video games – a natural combination?

This one makes me wonder . . .

A study by the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona has found that surgical residents performed better during simulated surgery after playing games on the Nintendo Wii console for an hour beforehand. The study found that “only those games requiring precise movements, like Marble Mania in which a player guides a marble through a 3D obstacle course using the Wii’s motion-sensitive remote, are effective”.

Sounds like a good idea – in theory. But what if they don’t play only “games requiring precise movements”?

I can see it now . . . some surgically gowned maniac decides that my gall-bladder resembles the golf ball he was trying to drive 400 yards on the long 9th hole and swings at it with a two-iron scalpel. His partner jeers at him, saying “You’re in the rough!”, and carves a trough in my innards trying to get his own ball (my left kidney) out of the woods (my intestines) and onto the green (my liver).

By the time they finish I doubt whether I’ll be capable of a Wii at all!

Peter