"Teddy Bear Hospital Project" school visits improve pre-clerkship students' comfort explaining medical concepts to children

Hannah Kis, Kaitlin Endres, Anna Karwowska, Megan Harrison, Stephanie Lau, Olivia Lemire, Marc Zucker, Hannah Kis, Kaitlin Endres, Anna Karwowska, Megan Harrison, Stephanie Lau, Olivia Lemire, Marc Zucker

Abstract

The "Teddy Bear Hospital Project" (TBHP) is a low cost, international initiative aimed at reducing children's fears associated with healthcare visits by modelling these interactions using teddy bears. The University of Ottawa program had the additional objective of assessing whether TBHP increased pre-clerkship medical students' comfort communicating medical concepts to children. Our student volunteers reported a statistically significant increase in their comfort communicating medical topics to young children and all volunteers would recommend TBHP to a colleague interested in pursuing family medicine or pediatrics. Our program could also be easily replicated by Pediatric Interest Groups at other Canadian medical schools.

Conflict of interest statement

The authors have received no financial support for the creation of this innovation and all authors have no conflicts of interest to disclose.

© 2022 Kis, Endres, Karwowska, Harrison, Lau, Lemire, Zucker; licensee Synergies Partners.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Ratio of child participants to facilitators for each station of the four stations. Note that the first 15-minute station was Handwashing and Immunization, facilitated by all three volunteers to the complete group of students. After this point, students and volunteers split into three groups and rotated in 15-minute intervals between the three remaining stations (well-child visit; X-ray & MRI; and casting & bone health).

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Source: PubMed

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