TEDDY BEAR HOSPITAL – Ecuador (AEMPPI)

Name of the activity: TEDDY BEAR HOSPITAL

Country/NMO: Ecuador (AEMPPI)

Program: Children Health & Rights

Contact information: [email protected]

Type of the activity: Education

General description:

Teddy Bear Hospital is an emblematic IFMSA project in which medical students interact with children and teach them that there is no reason to fear doctors or the procedures they perform. It is an activity in which, through games, children become doctors for a day and perform their stuffed toys to which they could be exposed during their visits to the doctor. This project has been carried out several times within AEMPPI, focusing on day care centers, but this year it will be carried out with the pediatric patients of health houses. It is expected that there will be around 25 participants in each of the 6 cities with OLs that are full members. In addition, it is expected to involve at least 15 pediatric patients per city. One or two health houses per city will be visited, depending on the number of OLs and opening by the health houses. The activity will be carried out in a single day. A guide will be prepared so that participants know what they should do and how they should interact with the children. Participants will wear costumes and fun accessories to get the children’s attention. In addition materials such as teddy bears, toy injections, stethoscopes and surgical clothing will be used for children to assume the role of doctors of their dolls.

Focus area:

Children’s mental health, Children’s rights with emphasis on the right to health and access to healthcare services

Problem statement:

A study reveals that several children report a certain type of fear in the context of hospitalization, such as: separation from the family, injections and blood tests, long periods of stay in health homes, and receiving “bad news” about the state of your health. What the activity offers to children is the opportunity to interpret the doctor and practice some procedures on a patient, in this case his teddy bear. Those who guide and give advice to small doctors are medical students from different universities in Ecuador. In this way the children know and familiarize themselves with routine processes in a relaxed manner, since they act as the doctor and not as the patient to whom the review and studies are being done.

Target groups and beneficiaries:

The activity is aimed at children hospitalized in different health houses. The long-term beneficiaries will be these children who in the future opt for medicine as a professional career or lose their fear when required by medical check-ups or hospitalizations

Objectives and indicators of success:

To familiarize 90 children who are hospitalized, with medical procedures through demonstrations of these in different cities of the country in the month of March 2018.
Indicator: Clinical records of teddy bears.

Develop skills in at least 50 medical students that allow them to interact with children from different health houses in Ecuador, through dynamics aimed at medical procedures.
Indicator: Child’s file
Teach at least 90 hospitalized pediatric patients that doctors do not hurt and there should be no fear of going to them, during the activity in March 2018.
Indicator: Feedback from the attending physician in the pediatric area.

Methodology:

Request authorization within health facilities to work with hospitalized pediatric patients.
Directing dynamics in a medical context such as simulation of image and laboratory tests where children perform these procedures on their teddy bears.
Fill in a file of both the child (Personal data) and the stuffed animal (Data and diagnosis)

Plans for evaluation:

Record of the child and his DOLL (indicator at least 50).
The teddy bear’s card will have name, owner’s name, age, what happened to the teddy bear, diagnosis and treatment.
Form of feedback of the activity on the part of the participants.