The board game revealed which doctors are the most agile and prone to arguing the most.

Good coordination and manual dexterity are essential for many working in a hospital: from surgeons, who require precise fine motor skills during operations, to administrative staff who can quickly and accurately type the necessary text for doctors.

It is logical to assume that the most skilled hands belong to scalpel masters, but is it possible that someone could rival surgeons? Medical researchers from the University of Leeds (UK) aimed to find out. For the experiment, they recruited over 250 staff members from their clinic network, including 60 general practitioners, 64 surgeons, 69 nurses, and 61 non-clinical staff.

The game Buzz wire, used to assess dexterity, can be translated into Russian as "Don't touch the wire." The objective is to maneuver a stick with a metal loop on one end and a wire on the other along a long wire bent at various angles and attached to a base, without making contact. The time taken was recorded, and if a participant touched the wire at any point, a signal sounded, indicating a return to the starting point.

During the trials, audio recordings were made to capture the sounds emitted by the participants. Expressions of frustration were noted, including sighs, groans, grumbles, and muttering, as well as expletives. The researchers explained that the latter included any swear words deemed inappropriate for live television before 9 PM and listed by the British media regulator Ofcom in their list of offensive expressions.

As expected, surgeons emerged as the most dexterous in the experiment. However, the researchers were surprised by the significant advantage they demonstrated: 84% of surgeons completed the task within five minutes, while only 54% of general practitioners and 51% of nurses managed to do so in the same timeframe.

The average time taken to complete the game was 89 seconds for surgeons, 120 seconds for doctors, 135 seconds for nurses, and 161 seconds for non-clinical staff.

The researchers noted that although the Buzz wire game is not officially recognized as a tool for assessing manual dexterity, it can indeed be used as it provides insights into fine motor skills, hand steadiness, eye-hand coordination, and the ability to cope with stress during demanding work.

Surgeons also outperformed other hospital staff in terms of swearing. Half of them used expletives during the task. In comparison, among nurses, the proportion was 30%, and among doctors, only 25%.

Sounds expressing frustration were most frequently made by non-clinical staff and nurses. However, these expressions were also heard from more than half of the surgeons and general practitioners.

As a potential method to combat the tendency of surgeons to swear, the researchers suggested introducing a "fine jar" for cursing. An article about the experiment was published in the BMJ journal.