Development program gives children playful hospital experience

Doctor Edward McCabe’s goal at the Mattel Children’s
Hospital is to “look after the whole child,” ensuring
that youths’ emotional and mental needs are cared for along
with their physical ailments.

He looks to funding from the UCLA Run/Walk to help him do
this.

As physician-in-chief of the Mattel Children’s Hospital,
McCabe has seen the effects of the Child Life/Child Development
program and credits the UCLA Run/Walk as an instrumental part in
funding it.

The run/walk, held this past Sunday, is an annual event to raise
money for the hospital’s Child Life/Child Development
program.

Many of the children are chronically ill patients who either
come in and out of the hospital or live there for extended periods
of time.

The program comprises six professionals and about 200 volunteers
and works to provide one-on-one interaction with children in the
hospital, with the hopes of giving them a more youthful
experience.

“Thirty years ago they were patients,” McCabe said.
“We now recognize that we need to have a place where kids can
be kids.”

To aid in this process, the program sets up playrooms where
children can play without the seeming threat of medical
procedures.

To drive this point home, McCabe explained that all of the
playrooms are equipped with a “white coat
hook.”Â When medical staff enter the room, they are
reminded to hang up their white coats and take a moment to be more
to a child than just a doctor.

Rucha Gadgil, co-director of the run/walk, said it is often
easier for a child to open up to a volunteer than a doctor because
the volunteers are “not the people putting needles in their
arms.” By hanging up their coats in the playroom, doctors are
symbolically trying to remove that association.

This helps to ensure that the playroom stays a “safe
haven.”

But playrooms are more that an escape from the rest of hospital
life. As Child Life/ Child Development Specialist Marybeth
Mellot explained, “Play can be therapeutic.”

She said by developing appropriate activities, specialists and
volunteers help children understand what is going on.

“They are pretty vulnerable in this environment. “¦
We want to make sure they feel like they have some control over
their environment and their experiences,” Mellot said.

She pointed to one instance of a boy undergoing “play
therapy” with a volunteer. While painting with the volunteer,
the boy painted a picture of a surgeon with a “scary”
knife, clearly adorned in medical garb.

Mellot said that through the painting, “we were able to
see that this child was traumatized. He wasn’t able talk
about it, but he painted it. We were able to say, “˜This child
needs help.'”

The program also aims at “keeping the spirits of the
children up,” said Gadgil, who also volunteers for the
hospital.

McCabe pointed to a young boy who, through the program, was able
to meet a professional baseball player.

“One of the doctors told me that it was the first time
he’d seen the patient smile for a month,” he said.

Those involved with the program insist that, like the volunteer
base, the run/walk is an important element in the program’s
continuation.

Mellot said the California budget deficit has only increased the
need for donations and programs such as the run/walk. She also
said, “It’s big monetarily, of course, but also
motivationally.”

The run/walk is organized by an entirely student-run committee
of Student Welfare Commission that sits on the Undergraduate
Students Association Council.

The funds generated from last year’s run/walk totaled
about $25,000, Gadgil said.