“For many children, the first experience they have in a hospital may be going to the emergency department for stiches or even to the operating room for surgery,” said Hallie Chancellor, a certified child life specialist at St. Luke’s Magic Valley. “My role is to help support children and their families with comfort, coping skills and education.”
For the Teddy Bear Clinic, Chancellor recruited a multidisciplinary team of St. Luke’s staff to take the children (and their bears) through a variety of sights, sounds and situations they might encounter in the hospital.
The event started outside with the kids gathered at the ambulance bay, where Magic Valley Paramedics manager Stan Flint broke the ice with a couple of simple questions.
“Who likes ambulances?” he asked the wide-eyed group. “Who wants to look inside?”
Hands quickly shot up, with each child walking through the ambulance before selecting their very own bear. Each child received a special passport for their teddy bear with spaces for stickers to collect at each clinic station where they learned about vital signs, stitches, IVs, nutrition and more.
“We help their heart,” Flint told the kids, demonstrating CPR on a bear, “then we bring them to the hospital.”
At another Teddy Bear Clinic station, Garth Blackburn showed children how to carefully clean their bears and apply bandages to hold wounds together.
