Playing video games made me a better surgeon

A trainee surgeon Saied Froghi played video games like Age of Empires and Halo in his spare time during medical school. But rather than impede his learning, he believes the time he spent in front of a screen has actually helped his surgery skills.

A trainee surgeon Saied Froghi played video games like Age of Empires and Halo in his spare time during medical school.

But rather than impede his learning, he believes the time he spent in front of a screen has actually helped his surgery skills.

He's one of a number of doctors and health professionals who disagree with a professor of surgery who claims medical students are losing manual dexterity because they are spending too much time "swiping".

In fact, video games can improve your manual dexterity, sharpen your reaction time, and train you to focus on specific tasks, they say.

And gaming can even act as a good "warm up" exercise for surgeons too, it's claimed.

For Saied, playing games helped him with his concentration.

"If you take the example of keyhole surgery, your eyes focus on a screen and your hands move synchronously with what you are doing," he said.

"That's a similar scenario to when you are playing football with a games console. Your hands know where the buttons are and how to rotate the instrument."