A Scottish children’s hospital has a gamer-in-residence who plays w/ patients. “He said that playing Mario Kart has improved the mobility of a patient’s hand and that it was also a useful tool in distracting the children during medical procedures.”
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
Discussion 4 comments
This is ... amazing/wonderful/beautiful. And, really, the sort of story/idea I needed to see on a day like today.
Having spent so many hours playing video games with my brothers as a kid, both with big age gaps on either size, this is a brilliant way to connect with people coming from very different backgrounds
I work at a children's hospital in Washington State that employs this kind of position! Shoutout to our funder Child's Play Charity, a great nonprofit that's funded Pediatric Gaming and Technology Specialists in 33 hospitals across the United States, Canada, and Kenya.
https://www.childsplaycharity.org/
I spent a few days in a hospital as a small kid, and another kid having a Nintendo and sharing it with everyone was what got us all through it.
When I read Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, I couldn't get that memory out of my head for weeks.
This guy is a hero and will be responsible for a whole wave of game developers in Glasgow in ~15 years.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!
In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. Check out your options for renewal.
This is the name that'll be displayed next to comments you make on kottke.org; your email will not be displayed publicly. I'd encourage you to use your real name (or at least your first name and last initial) but you can also pick something that you go by when you participate in communities online. Choose something durable and reasonably unique (not "Me" or "anon"). Please don't change this often. No impersonation..
Note: I'm letting folks change their display names because the membership service that kottke.org uses collects full names and I thought some people might not want their names displayed publicly here. If it gets abused, I might disable this feature.
If you feel like this comment goes against the grain of the community guidelines or is otherwise inappropriate, please let me know and I will take a look at it.
Hello! In order to leave a comment, you need to be a current kottke.org member. If you'd like to sign up for a membership to support the site and join the conversation, you can explore your options here.
Existing members can sign in here. If you're a former member, you can renew your membership.
Note: If you are a member and tried to log in, it didn't work, and now you're stuck in a neverending login loop of death, try disabling any ad blockers or extensions that you have installed on your browser...sometimes they can interfere with the Memberful links. Still having trouble? Email me!