Videogames for surgical skills?

A study published in this month's issue of Archives of Surgery found "a strong correlation between videogame skills and a surgeon's capabilities performing laparoscopic surgery," Reuters reported. " Out of 33 surgeons from Beth Israel Medical Center in New York that participated in the study, the nine doctors who had at some point played videogames at least three hours per week made 37% fewer errors, performed 27% faster, and scored 42% better in the test of surgical skills than the 15 surgeons who had never played video games before." However, moms and dads, one of the study's authors did tell Reuters that spending more than an hour a day playing videogames is *not* going to help kids get into medical school! (A 2004 survey found that 94% of US teens play videogames for an average of nine hours a week, Reuters added.) In related findings, the 2005 National Summit on Educational Games, sponsored by the Federation of American Scientists, the Entertainment Software Assoc., and the National Science Foundation, concluded among other things that "many videogames require players to master skills in demand by today's employers – strategic and analytical thinking, problem solving, planning and execution, decisionmaking, and adaptation to rapid change," Harris Interactive cited in its latest trend report.