Everyday Gamer

Gaming Isn't Brain Surgery

We don't start afternoon rounds until our chief is out of the OR, and by the time we've seen all the patients, answered all the family questions, completed all the post-operative checks and resolved the outstanding issues of the day, it's 8 p.m, 15 hours after I got to work. I am not on call tonight, so after making sure none of my coworkers need any help - you never leave anyone hanging - I head for the locker room, change out of my scrubs and grab my iPod for the walk to the parking deck. Tomorrow I'm on call, so I'll be in the hospital for 30 straight hours, and I need to sleep beforehand. After grabbing a Big Mac on the way home, I walk in the door around 8:40 and promptly collapse onto the sofa. I think I TiVo-ed the Monday Night Football game from four days ago. Still haven't watched it.

Finally, after three consecutive weekends of being on call and 26 straight days of work, I have a weekend off. There are a lot of things to do, including shopping that I haven't taken care of since last month, the household chores that I've put on hold, the presentation I'm still working on for next Monday and all the journal articles I haven't yet read that I will nonetheless be responsible for knowing. One luxury I permit myself, though, is watching two episodes of a 10-part documentary on the First World War, done by Channel 4 a few years ago.

Ten minutes into it, I'm already thinking about good World War I computer games. Are there any? I remember that Matrix Games released Frank Hunter's The Guns of August a few years ago, and I might still have a copy in my big box of game CDs stashed away in the closet. But after a few more minutes of consideration, I remember that it was pretty complicated, and I just don't have time to spend hours learning a game system anymore.

I spend Sunday evening preparing for the week's cases, especially Monday's. I need to look at the patient histories and memorize the scans that will guide the next day's surgery. This is a constant problem: One person told me that while he would like his brain surgeon to have read War & Peace, he doesn't necessarily want his brain surgeon to be reading War & Peace. That's certainly fair: Any time I spend not reading about angiography, neuroanatomy or critical care is that much less I'll know when it counts. I owe my patients all my attention; how much do I owe myself?

I decide to make time for another 15 minutes of Dwarf Fortress.