play!

Teddy Bear Clinic

Another fun event my team and I hosted in honor of child life month was a teddy bear clinic. This event is usually a great hit with the patients and families.

We started off by giving each “doctor” their patients chart. Here we included some information on the “top 10 reasons to call your child life specialist” as well as information on the different stations at the event.

These are all of our “bear-y” sick patients. We contacted our marketing department and they had many bears with our hospital’s logo that they were happy to donate to us!

This first station is where our “doctors” would gown up and get ready to treat their patients. This was a very popular station and it was so adorable to see kids proudly walking around looking like doctors.

The next station was triage followed by the IV station. We had a CCLS at each of these stations helping guide the “doctors” as they cared for their patient. Here is where we were able to sneak in our education & address misconceptions.

Here’s a closer look at our triage station and IV station.

Finally, the patients were able to do an x-ray by dipping our demo bear into white paint and smudging it on black paper. This was a very fun and creative way to incorporate medical art into our teddy war clinic.

Some other activities we had at the clinic were a photo booth station with props and a table with markers, crayons, and construction paper for the “doctors” to write a get well soon card to a patient in the hospital. We also included band-aids and gauze at this station to continue to promote medical art. Needless to say our clinic was a big success and all of our teddy bears were cured. Thanks, doctors!

Favorite apps

I just recently got approval to use an iPad as a tool for distraction and education with my patients. I am so grateful to finally be able to use this amazing tool! Here are some of my favorite apps that I’ve been using:

Medi toons is my go-to app when doing appy teachings for older kids and parents. it’s a free app that shows videos about different (mostly gastro) conditions.

This app was recently reviewed by one of my favorite child life bloggers, child life mommy. It’s a [free] app that helps teach little ones to control their frustration by remembering to breathe, think, and then do!

Wellapets is an awesome [free] app about asthma! This interactive game does a great job of promoting asthma education in a fun way.

This is my go to app for MRI & CT scan teachings. Just last week I had a 9yo patient that was going to have an MRI. He’d had them before but was always been sedated for them. I showed him what the MRI machine sounded like with this app & thanks to that, he said he didn’t need any medicine to do his MRI this time. Thanks, Simply Sayin’!

Disney Junior Appisodes is a forever favorite. This app features familiar beloved characters in an interactive & colorful display. This is ideal for lengthy procedures & really engages children in the appisode.

Caillou’s check up app has been a very popular pick on my iPad. So popular I decided to splurge a bit ($4.99) and unlock all of the “levels” (you get the first level for free). With this app you’re able to help Caillou with his doctor’s office check up: taking his temperature, height, weight, etc.

I downloaded this app just as a filler to have more choices for my toddler population and for some reason it’s also been a very popular choice amongst my patients. It’s a simple free little app in which you’re given tasks to complete such as puzzles, picking the largest fish, picking the smallest fish, etc. while calming, ocean-themed music plays in the background. I’m very impressed with this app and it’s popularity!

And finally, Skylanders Lost Islands. This free app is VERY popular with wide age range of my male patients. It’s great for the younger ones because it plays a 4-5minute video upon starting which is very dramatic and engaging. For my older boys, it’s a fun and interactive game with familiar characters.

Teddy bear casting clinic

Today my fellow CCLS & I helped in hosting a teddy bear casting clinic outside of a local children’s theater. It was so much fun! The kids loved learning how to cast their bears & being able to feel the supplies used. We successfully casted tons of Teddy’s with broken arms and legs.

(No teddy bears were hurt during the making of this event.)

Syringe painting

One of my favorite activities to do with my patients is syringe painting. I haven’t had much of a chance to do it in a while and last week I finally got the opportunity! I was supporting a very spunky & brave 7-year-old during her IV start which took a long time because her veins were “very sleepy” and “not popping out”. She began to ask questions about everything the nurse was using and different medical equipment in the room. I was able to pull out some medical supplies she could manipulate and become familiar with, including syringes. When I showed it to her she seemed confused, asking where the needle was. After I explained to her that the needle is placed if needed, I realized “this is a great patient to do syringe painting with!”
Once her IV was placed, I went and brought back some paint in medicine cups, construction paper, a syringe (of course), and some q-tips to spread the paint around the paper. She had a blast painting with medical supplies!

Happy!

The Child Life team at Joe DiMaggio Childre’s Hospital (where I completed my internship) made this AWESOME video for child life month! I love it, girls!

Theme week – Day 5, World Fair!

For our grand finale of our theme week we decided to have a World Fair! We had stickers, passports, globe stress balls, and globe headbands to hand out to the kiddos that came by (all purchases from oriental trading.)