Teenage Gamers Are Better At Virtual Surgery Than MDs

John White
(Online source) - Article

A lot of people see videogames as the "time-waster" of the century. That's silly, and there have been a lot of studies that show why. The latest? Researchers have found that high school- and college-age gamers are better virtual surgeons than medical residents.

Scientists from University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston had a hunch that students with a regular videogame diet (high school sophomores who played two hours of games a day and college students who played four) would be primed for virtual surgery tools. They were right. When performance with those tools was measured, the game-playing students did better than a group of residents at UTMB. It was only slightly better, but still. Kinda makes you wonder: Who do you really want poking you with needles, a prim Harvard-educated resident or a slovenly high school kid who spends Friday nights playing Call of Duty?