What if kids were given the support to participate in and understand their own health care? – @savingcase
For more health care dreams, please see:
What if health care…? (Storify)
Or any of my other #whatifhc posts.
I help people navigate health and technology.
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Thank you for posting my dear sweet Case. This photo speaks highly of the staff at UNC Children’s Hospital in Chapel Hill, NC. Hospitals, especially children’s hospitals, should train their staff to inquire about what a child might need to help them understand and also never just rush a child to keep up with the “schedule.” Parents of children with chronic health interventions should be offered information about medical trauma and if possible, strategies to prevent and deal with existing medical trauma like play and music therapy can be integrated into the process.
A nurse brought Case this small anesthesia mask upon my request and we were allowed to take time to “give Woody anesthesia, ” giving Case much better understanding and control of his environment. While he still fights the “mask,” we can talk about it afterwards in a context he can understand.
It’s my honor to feature this sweet moment of caregiving, a child to his doll. He’s carefully holding the mask for Woody, just as someone bigger than he is will hold the mask for him — with tenderness and attention. So precious — thank you for sharing it.
Laura Kolaczkowski (@lkay54) tweeted a link to her post, which is so good and so relevant that I’m going to excerpt the first paragraph:
“Do you ever sit through a number of presentations thinking: oh, that’s nice, or that is interesting and you may be taking a few notes and filing it away for future reference? Then there is that one moment like a meteor shooting across the sky that makes you sit up in awe and be so excited you can feel it to your toes. That was the sense of excitement the enveloped me as I listened to Kia Beickert, Child Life Specialist at North Shore Hospital, Evanston, Illinois, discuss the use of I-Pads with pediatric care at the recent Mayo Clinic Center for Social Media conference. I had this goofy smile as she described the justification for their use and couldn’t help but smile larger as she went into the details…”
Read: Every Hospital Should Do This
Thanks for the re-exposure of this idea; I hope it will inspire others to contact Kia Beickert , North Shore Hospital, Evanston, IL, for more details. The idea is so simple it is brilliant. I would not have heard this presentation if it hadn’t been for the kindness of Melissa Hogan, Case’s mother, allowing me to tag along to Mayo Clinic for this conference. I find it more than coincidental that in October I used a photo of an i-pad playing Toy Story and today I see Case’s beautiful face reenacting the medical details on Woody. Thanks again for exposing your readers to both Case and his care at UNC,and the I-pad program at North Shore. They both illustrate it doesn’t have to be an over-the-top intervention to be effective- sometimes the quiet moments of sharing can make the largest difference for our children. be well, Laura