Nursing students administer teddy bear care
At Teddy Bear Hospital Chadstone, children brought their much-loved toys for a check-up while nursing students gained valuable experience communicating with young patients and their families. The hands-on event helped make healthcare feel more familiar, welcoming and less intimidating for children.
The student perspective
Clinical environments can be overwhelming and intimidating for individuals of all ages. With this in mind, we felt genuinely honoured to promote familiarity and comfort around healthcare for every child who attended our Teddy Bear Hospital Chadstone event.
As aspiring paediatric nurses, this experience provided an invaluable opportunity to develop and refine our clinical communication and assessment skills with young children and their families. On behalf of the TBH Nursing team, we are immensely proud of our exceptional nursing student volunteers. Each one contributed their time, energy and enthusiasm, sharing smiles, laughter and reassurance with the thousands of families who visited our treatment stations.
The staff perspective
Reducing the anxiety associated with healthcare, often referred to as ‘white coat fever’, is essential in making medical and hospital experiences more positive and less intimidating. Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) offers a unique and powerful opportunity to achieve this.
For nursing students, as one part of the interdisciplinary team from the Melbourne School of Health Sciences, TBH provides an outstanding platform to practise and demonstrate the core clinical skills and professional behaviours required for contemporary nursing practice; skills many of these students are only weeks away from applying in real clinical settings. TBH is far more than a volunteering opportunity; it is a vital learning experience that enables students to:
- communicate effectively with children at different developmental stages
- engage sensitively with parents and families
- collaborate with students from other disciplines
- manage large crowds and high demand in a dynamic environment
Supporting eager children keen to have their teddy bears, rabbits, Bluey ‘stuffies’ and every other possible version of a precious soft toy 'treated' allowed students to put their time management, organisational skills, patience and conflict management abilities to the test; and they excelled.
We could not be prouder of our nursing students, who consistently demonstrated professionalism, warmth and good humour, even amidst runny noses, cut fingers and the occasional missing teddy bear. We were particularly impressed by those who managed to cheerfully endure countless repetitions of “Let It Go” and “If You’re Happy and You Know It” throughout the day. We went home humming both tunes, reassured and inspired, knowing that the future of nursing is in very safe hands.
Image description: Nursing Students (and Teddy) at TBH Chadstone Event.