Physician in very early training

As I started my day walking down the hall at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, taking a quick look at notes I had made for the day, I could not help but see a young mother standing next to the portable x-ray machine painted as a giraffe.

The woman looked as if she had not slept in weeks, that the life inside her had been stripped from her. I asked the woman if she wanted something to drink, a cup of coffee or a glass of water.

She said no. I then asked if I could do anything for her; at that moment her eyes started to swell. I sat with this woman for over an hour as tears rolled down her face. I listened to her; as she told me about her five-year-old son who had spent more time in CHOP than at his home and she didn’t know if he was coming home this time. It was at that moment that I realized the intensive care unit at CHOP is not for the meek.

To this day, I will never forget that conversation. I often think about that family, now that I have my own family. And I think about all of the children I met and with whom I formed relationships. The sickest kids in Philadelphia taught me more about myself, about play-doh, and about Mr. Potato Head than I ever thought I could know.

Not Every Child Is Born Healthy

Not every child is born healthy, or if they are, they may develop an illness. That, in its most rudimentary terms, is why an institution like CHOP exists.

For the children who require hospitalizations, the task force of medical professionals at CHOP today not only includes doctors and nurses, but also child life specialists. As part of a university internship I worked as a child life specialist at CHOP. It was a life-altering experience.

Full-time, experienced child life specialists are people who have to be almost super-humanely patient, holding babies who are crying for hours and hours in the nursery, or helping a six-year-old girl who was born with HIV learn to read, or listening to a teenage boy talk while he is waiting for an organ transplant. Not only do the child life specialists care for the children, but for their caretakers, too.

People in Scrubs

Children and adults notice if a person is in scrubs, or wearing a lab coat. Child life specialists are in street clothes, to make the families and their children feel more comfortable. Children want what any adult would want when he or she is in a hospital, compassion, attention, and love.

Child life specialists are attentive to the whole family and to the needs of the guardians and siblings. Decisions about procedures should be fully explained, whether it is a cat scan or open heart surgery. Using toys, drawing pictures, or playing games to ease a situation and explain what will happen during the procedure should be a universal practice that all pediatric hospitals use. The best ones, like CHOP, usually do.

The family members should be able to be with the patient and play with him or her so they, too, will know what is going to happen. There are many therapeutic and recreational ways to ease a stressful situation for a child; doctors and nurses are very busy and do not have the time to serve in that capacity, even if they wanted to.

Having a child life specialist can be what that patient and family needs in order to get through the many sleepless nights that come when a child is ill. After all, hope lives at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.