Previous to using the simulator, half of the group trained with the Wii, while the other half did not. that would be their ideal reply for residents who must go home due to work-hour caps. One is the faithful Wii standby, Marble Mania, which is a 3D puzzle game that involves rolling a marble around a maze. A game like Marble Mania is much more useful than, say, tennis or bowling. The training they completed with the Wii was actually to prepare the surgeons for a more advanced surgery simulator. From here, a more extensive study will be conducted with Stanford and Harvard universities, the University of Washington and East Virginia Medical School.

Susan Jacobs is a teacher, a freelance writer as well as a regular contributor for NOEDb, a site helping students obtain an online nursing degree. As a aftermath, those who had played the Wii showed 48% improvement with the laparoscopic procedure.

Authors of the study hope to develop a full-blown surgery simulator for the Nintendo Wii. While at home, they can be training for surgery on their gaming console.

After the authors went public with their study, they

presented it at the Medicine Meets Virtual Reality Conference, which garnered quite a bit of media coverage. Yes, it’s essentially a process of training with a video game to play with another video game.

One of the key areas that doctors are trying to focus on is improving their skills with keyhole surgery, additionally known as laparoscopic surgery. Susan invites your questions, comments and freelancing job inquiries at her newsletter address susan.jacobs45@gmail.com.