If not, you might want to find one that does. According to Dr. James Clarence Rosser Jr, a 'virtuoso' laparoscopic surgeon at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, it's an excellent way to train for this complex surgical skill, involving ultra small video cameras.

Apparently, if you can play a mean game of Super Monkey Ball, you may have the mastery of hand-eye coordination and keen depth perception necessary for delicately tying tiny knots in a piece of suturing thread inside someones body by watching it on screen.

Dr Rosser describes this as akin to "tying your shoelaces with three-foot-long chopsticks" while watching it all on television.

He's actually started a training program for doctors, using video games. According to a study he co-authored; 'surgeons who played video games for at least three hours a week were 27 percent faster and made 37 percent fewer mistakes than surgeons who did not play video games.'

The medical profession, never one to take such change gracefully is kicking up a fuss, but...

'He typically throws back his head and laughs loudly at the notion of resistance, something he faced as a black boy growing up in the segregated South. "I step up," Rosser said in his characteristic blend of hip-hop swagger and scientific exactitude. "I have a way of convincing people to do things they don't think they want to do."'

His nickname is Butch.

Hmmm... Odd choice for a surgical genius, but it sounds about right.

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