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This is a special edition of Local Flavor. Instead of visiting a game studio, I went out to Washington, DC with my co-worker Shahed Chowdhuri, to visit Children’s National Health System and the Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation.

So how is this relevant to games? In an amazing way. The Sheikh Zayed Institute for Pediatric Surgical Innovation is using video game technology to drive innovation in pain detection and management in children. Or to put it even more simply: games for healing.

Shahed and I spoke with Christy Baxter and Dr. Julie Finkel at the organization to learn more about their use of gaming technology to help children. In the process, we learned a lot about how pain works, and a lot about what Children’s National is doing to fight it.

The idea of playing games to solve problems in real life may seem far-fetched to some. The stereotypes that exist for games (and gamers) aren’t very positive; to add to that problem, the concept of games that inform and educate is often undercut by poor use of semantics or improper context. These problems often occur when talking about so-called “serious games,” two words that should never exist in the same phrase together. Listeners are left …