Serious games in surgical education

Videogames are becoming part of our everyday lives. The common image of the average gamer - a twelve-year old boy killing mystical dwarves in his parents’ attic - stands in stark contrast to the emerging serious games, videogames developed for useful purposes in life.
Serious (or applied) games are considered promising tools to improve the healthcare system: they have been designed to induce healthy behaviour, facilitate treatment of disease and educate medical professionals in a playful manner.
Serious games have the potential to train surgical professionals in dexterity and subtle eye-hand coordination, as well as procedural, cognitive and social skills. This thesis explores whether serious games can be considered valid and useful training tools for surgical professionals and seeks purposes to which they can be applied.