CAMPUS AND AREA
University Daily Kansan, November 9. 1984
Page 9
Book, video acquaint kids with Med Center
By SHARON ROSSE Staff Reporter
A trip to the hospital can be a frightening experience, especially for a child.
But a coloring book and an eight-minute videotape produced by Ray Sargent, director of community services for the University of Kansas Medical Center police, are being used to introduce young patients to the hospital, its staff and some general safety tips.
Children may take the book home from the hospital. Sargent said recently, so the book is safety for children and their parents to be more cautious.
"If we can interject one little safety tip into one little kid, and that stops him from helping the
dirty old man find his dog, and we then don't find that little boy's body someplace," he said, "the coloring book will have been a success."
THE ARTWORK FOR the coloring book, which depicts common hospital scenes and offers safety reminders, was designed by Larry Howell, director of design and illustration for the Med Center.
The video takes the children on a tour of the hospital to such places as the nursing station, the cafeteria and the mail room. It also introduces them to hospital employees.
Sargent said he worked closely with the nursing staff of the pediatric unit to make sure the scenes and people in the book and the video were presented in a positive way.
Ruth Heaton, assistant director of nursing for the pediatric area, said the nursing staff hoped the book and video would ease the child's transition into the hospital and make it an endurable visit.
The nurses have been distributing the book for about a week, she said, but the video has not been shown yet.
"SO AFRICHOUGH, most of the children like the coloring books." Heaton said. "The book includes a picture of a foster grandparent playing the guitar for some children. One of our foster grandparents really does play a lot of music and they often picture out and identify with him." Sargent said one edition of the book was distributed in the Med Center's pediatric unit and a second edition with fewer medical
themes was sent to the department of hearing and speech, the Ronald McDonald House and the Jay Care Center in Kansas City, Kan.
Sargent said he produced the book because most children knew nothing about how a hospital works or what police and a hospital staff do. The book and the video introduce pediatric patients to these people, reassure them that they are there to help them, and also interject some safety and crime prevention tips, he said.
SARGENT SAID HE originally had looked for a coloring book to buy, but the ones he found were either not specifically related to a medical setting or "the artwork was lousy." That was when he decided to produce the book himself.
Local bands to play concert for support of white bikes
Three local bands will perform tomorrow night at a concert to raise money and support for a fleet of white bicycles on campus.
The Blinkies, Poverty Wanks and Rabbitscat will play in the concert which starts at 9 p.m. tomorrow in the Kansas Union Ballroom, Carla Vogel, student body president, said earlier this week.
Money from the concert will be used to buy paint and used bicycles for the white bikes program, which Vogel and Dennis "Boog" Highberger, student body vice president, helped start at the beginning of the semester.
Vogel said that about 15 students had volunteered to help with the program. She said that students and teachers had donated about 10 bikes so far.
Admission to the concert costs $3.
Students who donate bicycles will be admitted free.
The white bikes idea is modeled after a system started in Amsterdam, Netherlands, in the late 1960s. Bikes will be left at various places around campus, and students will be able to ride them to other places on campus. The bikes will be painted white so they can be identified.
"I feel very positive about it," Vogel said of the program.
Vogel said that two bikes were already on campus and that she hoped to see all 10 on campus by spring.
"I've seen them in front of the union, at the lake and at Lindley, and I ridden one, which was exciting," she said. "A lot of people were cheering."