University Daily Kansan, April 27, 1981 Page 3
Mouse lessens kids' surgery fears
By LISA BOLTON Staff Reporter
Can a giant pink mouse named
surgery less
traumatic for children?
Deanna Gooden, director of operating and recovery rooms at Stormort-Vail Regional Medical Center in Topeka, thinks so.
Her own conception, the 9-year-old pre-operation education program prevents children's fears of the unknown by familiarizing young with the hospital and the hospital experience from the admissions office to the recovery room.
"A child knows no fear; it's instilled in him by his parents, his friends and his environment," Gooden said
recently to a pediatrics class taught by Judy McMillin, assistant professor of occupational therapy.
The goal of the Snorky program is to avoid fear by acquainting the child and his parents with an unfamiliar situation before he is admitted into the hospital.
Each child scheduled to have surgery receives an invitation to one of the monthly Snorky parties held at Stormont-Vail.
While the hospital chaplain talks to their parents, the prospective patients, wearing Snorky name tags, are introduced to the gas balloon used to put them on the floor. To the病房 tools are conveniently observe their heartbeats and to the caps and masks worn by operating room personnel during surgery.
Snorky, who is actually a 7-foot.
Plush pink mouse costume containing Julie Spencer, has photographs taken with the children, lets them listen to their hearts with a stethoscope and warns that shots do hurt, and that it's OK for them to cry.
After pink punch and Snorky cookies, parents and children tour the pediatrics ward, the operating room and the nursery. You'll get to meet a Snorky coloring book to take home.
According to norses' audits done after surgery, the program has been successful in treating fatal trauma and in making recovery less traumatic, Gooden said.
About 85 percent of all families invited attend a Snorky party. Those attending are usually the hospital and meet Snorky sometime before the child has surgery, she said.
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