Does video gaming affect orthopaedic skills acquisition? A prospective cohort-study

Area of Science:

• Orthopaedic surgery
• Surgical simulation
• Medical education

Background:

• Previous research indicated video gaming enhances surgical simulator skills in laparoscopy and endovascular procedures.
• The impact of video gaming on orthopaedic trauma simulation, specifically dynamic hip screw (DHS) procedures, was previously unexamined.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate the effect of prior video gaming experience on the performance of medical students using a virtual-reality (VR) haptic-enabled dynamic hip screw simulator.

Main Methods:

• 38 medical students, naive to VR simulation, were divided into video gamers (play >1 hour/day) and non-gamers (play <1 hour/year).
• Participants completed ten attempts on a VR DHS simulator, with performance metrics including time, fluoroscopy, and screw accuracy recorded.
• Statistical analysis used Mann-Whitney U and Wilcoxon signed-rank tests, with significance set at p < 0.05.

Main Results:

• No significant differences were observed between video gamers and non-gamers in any tested metrics after ten attempts.
• Performance indicators such as time, simulated fluoroscopy, retries, tip-apex distance, cut-out percentage, and global score showed no variation between groups.
• All 38 participants completed the study, with no significant baseline differences between the gaming and non-gaming cohorts.

Conclusions:

• Contrary to prior studies in other surgical fields, video gaming experience did not correlate with improved competency on a VR DHS simulator.
• This suggests that the benefits of video gaming in surgical skill acquisition may not extend to all simulation types, including orthopaedic trauma procedures.