The effect of video game "warm-up" on performance of laparoscopic surgery tasks.
BACKGROUND
Performing laparoscopic procedures requires special training and has been documented as a significant source of surgical errors. "Warming up" before performing a task has been shown to enhance performance. This study investigates whether surgeons benefit  from "warming up" using select video games immediately before performing laparoscopic partial tasks and clinical tasks.


METHODS
This study included 303 surgeons (249 men and 54 women). Participants were split into a control (n=180) and an experimental  group (n=123). The experimental group played 3 previously validated video games for 6 minutes before task sessions. The Cobra Rope partial task and suturing exercises were performed immediately after the warm-up sessions.


RESULTS
Surgeons who played video games prior to the Cobra  Rope drill were significantly faster on their first attempt and across all 10 trials. The experimental and control groups were significantly different in their total suturing scores (t=2.28, df=288, P<.05). The overall Top Gun score showed that the experimental group performed  marginally better overall.


CONCLUSIONS
This study demonstrates that subjects completing "warming-up" sessions with select video games prior to performing laparoscopic partial and clinical tasks (intracorporeal suturing) were faster and had fewer errors than participants  not engaging in "warm-up." More study is needed to determine whether this translates into superior procedural execution in the clinical setting.
Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta, GA, USA. brosser1@mac.com
James C
JC
Rosser
Douglas A
DA
Gentile
Kevin
K
Hanigan
Omar K
OK
Danner
D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D010535:Laparoscopy / Q000193:education; D008297:Male; D013536:Suture Techniques / Q000193:education; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis; D018910:Video Games