Kanav Kahol and Marshall Smith of the Banner Good Samaritan Medical Center in Phoenix, Arizona, have found that surgical residents performed better during simulated surgery after playing on the Wii console.

They asked eight surgical residents to play games on a Wii for an hour before their performed virtual surgery on Haptica's ProMIS Simulator. Those who warmed up using the console scored 48 per cent better for tool control and performance than those who did not.

Mark Smith said, "We used the ProMIS for testing the skills levels of our residents because we like the hybrid nature of the simulator, and because it has been well validated to accurately measure surgical skill levels."

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