Back in January we pointed out that research was underway in Phoenix to create a surgery-practice application using the Wiimote. They've finished the project. That's the device at the left, and the researchers have found that for a fraction of the cost of a high-tech simulator, they've improved residents' skills in certain procedures by 50 percent.

"One of the problems we’ve had over the years is we had no method to teach surgeons surgical skills without going into surgery," said Dr. Mark Smith, a co-developer and a gynecological surgeon at Banner Good Samaritan Hospital in Phoenix. "We now have simulators that help them develop those skills. The problem is they are incredibly expensive — like a flight simulator for a pilot. This gives us a much less costly way to train these fine motor skills that the surgeons employ during surgery."

WABC-TV in New York did a story on the Wii simulator, which includes video. News8 Austin, a Time-Warner cable news channel, also features a Q&A with Dr. Smith on its site (where we got the pic).

Link

Well this is not surprising, any form of practice, even virtual is priceless for hospital residents.

Hospitals buying out Wii's and wiimotes confirmed?

pichu_pichu making a lot of threads? That's something that you don't see everyday :P

OT

This is smething like Guitar Hero or Cooking Mama, i mean, those games don't teach you but you can get better with them.

Not quite. Those aren't even proper simulations for training. This is.

Well like previous posters said any form of practice is likely to improve performance , I wish i could do my homework with a Wii.

This if anything shows that what Nintendo have done is move futher into the future much more then what MS and Sony has.

This is what I like to see. Practical application of video games in professions and other parts of life.

 Yes, but those help you to improve, for ex. with Guitar Hero you learn to move the fingers faster, with Cooking Mama you can learn te way you should prepare some food.

 Guitar Hero teaches rhythm and beat. Huge part of playing any instrument. Along with helping dexterity and making it an enjoyable exercise rather than a painful treacherous one. That helps gaining and keeping the attention (Learning scales and how to read music from an old dude gets real boring after a couple minutes).

Nice. Add to that the new Motion plus and I bet they could easily build any surgery sim they needed for practice.