Research finds surgeon gamers are sharper

Worried that kids spend too much time playing video games? Take heart, they may become great surgeons.

New research published Monday found that surgeons with the highest scores on “Super Monkey Ball 2,” “Star Wars Racer Revenge” and “Silent Scope” performed best on tests of suturing and laparoscopic surgery.

Doctors who had played video games at least three hours a week sometime in their past worked 27 percent faster and made 37 percent fewer errors on the surgical tasks compared with those who had never picked up a game controller, according to the study.

The research looked at 33 surgeons attending a course on laparoscopic surgery and found that their game-playing skill was a better predictor of success on surgical tests than years of medical practice or number of surgeries performed.

Dr. Myriam J. Curet, a Stanford University surgeon who wrote an accompanying critique of the study in the Archives of Surgery, cautioned against uncontrolled gaming, which also has been linked with aggression and bad grades.