Can Playing Video Games Enhance Surgeons’ Cognitive and Motor Skills?

Leon Zaritski

As someone who enjoys both gaming and podcasts, while tuning into The Joe Rogan Experience #2223 - Elon Musk podcast, Rogan mentioned that “surgeons who regularly play video games make fewer errors.”
This made me wonder if playing video games can actually improve performance in high-stakes occupations like surgery.
Through this project, I aim to explore and visualise the cognitive and physical benefits of gaming

This project’s data originates from a published study that employed a structured laparoscopic training module called the Top Gun Laparoscopic Skills and Drills Curriculum to investigate how video game experience affects surgical performance.
The Top Gun drill is made up of three specific tasks: Core Drill, Cobra Rope Drill, and Slam Dunk Drill. The purpose of these exercises is to assess a participant’s precision, speed, and coordination with surgical instruments in simulated environments.
There were 33 Participants consisting of surgeons or surgical trainees (residents, medical students, or attendings) and they were evaluated based on their error rate, completion time, and an overall performance score. These metrics are used in the following charts to compare groups based on gaming experience (e.g. hours per week, current players vs. non-players, video game skill tertiles).
Participants were classified according to their gaming habits, and the study evaluated the relationship between laparoscopic simulation performance outcomes and gaming frequency and skill.

What Each Bar Chart Presents:

Findings:

Surgeons who played video games for more than three hours a week (out of 33 participants) made 37% fewer mistakes and were 27% faster than surgeons who did not play video games.

Interpreting This Chart:

The 31% represents the amount of variation in surgical performance that can be statistically explained by video game skill.
Among all tested factors, video game skill was the strongest predictor of laparoscopic simulation performance.
This influence was far greater than that of years of training, number of cases performed, or demographic factors.

Conclusion:

Playing video games may assist develop the timing, coordination, and precision necessary for surgery, as there seems to be a good correlation between video game competence and surgical task performance.

Clarifying “Top” vs “Bottom” Tertiles:

Each participant completed a standardised video game skill test using three commercial games:

Participants were ranked by performance and split into tertiles: top, middle, and bottom third.
Top Tertile = highest gameplay scores; Bottom Tertile = lowest.
This grouping is based on actual gameplay skill, not just playtime.

Key Findings:

Top-skilled gamers made 47% fewer errors than the bottom group.
Top-skilled gamers completed tasks 39% faster than the bottom group.
Top-skilled gamers scored 41% higher overall in the surgical simulator compared to the bottom group.

This graph illustrates the relationship between surgical simulator scores and performance in individual video games.
Super Monkey Ball 2 had the strongest correlation (r = 0.63) with laparoscopic performance, likely because it demands high spatial control and precision.
r = 0.63 reflects a moderately strong positive relationship highlighting that players who performed better in the game tended to perform better in surgical tasks.
This implies that certain games train relevant cognitive and motor skills, reinforcing the idea that game design matters when considering real-world skill transfer.

This chart compares current video game players against non-gamers on surgical simulation performance.
Current gamers made 32% fewer errors, were 24% faster, and scored 26% higher in overall Top Gun simulator performance.
This supports the idea that playing continuously, rather than only from prior experience maintains high cognitive and physical readiness.

Sample Size: There were just 33 participants in the study, which is insufficient to make generalisations about all surgeons.
Short-Term Testing: This was a simulated setting rather than actual patient surgical results.
Gaming Skill does not Correlate with Experience: Even in the absence of frequent play, some participants might have innate skill.
Ethical balance: Concerns about screen time, addiction, and passive play must be balanced with the promotion of gaming as a form of training.

PowerfulJRE. (2024, November 5). Joe Rogan Experience #2223 - Elon Musk[Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7qZl_5xHoBw&t=143s&ab_channel=PowerfulJRE
Rosser, J. C., Lynch, P. J., Cuddihy, L., Gentile, D. A., Klonsky, J., & Merrell, R. (2007, February 1). The impact of video games on training surgeons in the 21st century. JAMA Surgery, 142(2), 181–186. https://doi.org/10.1001/archsurg.142.2.181