Playing to Heal?

As the field of game development has expanded, so too have our applications of games and the theories associated with them with somewhat more "serious" fields: war games, be they in the form of first-person shooters or strategic command simulators, have been used by the military to train soldiers, pilots, and commanders for the past decade or so, and more recently (although not much moreso) games and simulations have been used to help train medical professionals in their respective lines of work. However, while games may be used to teach the "hard" skills of actually performing medical procedures, I don't really think they currently have the capacity to teach softer skills to doctors: the skills they need to actually work with people in an effective manner as to provide not only the best treatment, but the best care.
The Hoffman article intrigued me, however. We've all by this point seen game consoles in the waiting rooms of pediatricians or dentists, but this was the first I've heard of games, or at least virtual reality, being used in the midst of medical procedures to lessen pain and stress in a patient -- and, if you think about it, there is no reason why this should not work. Just as many trying to correlate games and violence have showed that portions of the brain related to thrill-seeking behavior and aggression are triggered by intense competitive or violent games, a serene situation, even if simulated, should have the opposite affect. SnowWorld amused me in particular just because the underlying principle is so simple: put a burn victim someplace cold. Sure, they could have imagined themselves there, but giving them an actual visual aid during treatment probably intensifies the experience in ways not even verbal hypnosis could accomplish.
As the week's articles have discussed, games used in the medicinal field are best relegated to helping children (and, as they become more accepted, adults) deal with stress before or during invasive or otherwise-intense medical procedures. While there is nothing wrong with medical training using a simulator for actual procedure, there is no substitute for good old-fashioned doctor's empathy -- something that no game at present can teach nor replicate.