Specialists ‘normalize' hospital enivornment for children

EDINBURG - In this room, for a little while, 4-year-old Elizabeth Waldridge has nothing to worry about but the picture she's painting.

Using a small syringe and tiny pots of glossy paint, Elizabeth carefully draws a rainbow. Her mother, Patricia, smiles in approval. It's almost easy to forget where they are, that Elizabeth is connected to an IV and wearing a hospital gown. For a moment, everything seems normal.

Trying to give children a respite from the stresses of the hospital, and helping them cope, is Cassie Wiley's job. She is a child-life specialist at Edinburg Children's Hospital, where Elizabeth, of Brownsville, was recently a patient. Every day, she plans activities with the hospital's patients, from painting to games to crafts, often using everyday hospital items like syringes or tongue depressors. The goal is to acclimate children to the hospital environment and reduce their anxieties, Wiley said.

"There are so many people in a hospital who physically take care of the children. I'm more of an advocate for their emotional care, helping them with coping skills," Wiley said.

Wiley is one of two child-life specialists in the Rio Grande Valley's hospitals. The profession has become more prominent in recent years in the U.S., with more children's hospitals and outpatient clinics across the country hiring them and more universities starting degree programs. Currently, there are about 3,000 certified child-life specialists around the world, said Melissa Boyd, resource-development coordinator for the Child Life Council, which certifies these specialists.

More hospitals are showing interest in having child-life specialists on staff because there's a push for hospitals to become "family-centered and child-friendly," Boyd said.

To become certified, child-life specialists must have a bachelor's degree with course work in child development, plus 480 hours of clinical experience working with children. They must also pass an exam.

Child-life specialists' primary job is to reduce children's stress while in the hospital through "normalizing" their environment and educating them about what happens in the hospital, said Lesley Chong, a child-life specialist at Texas Children's Hospital in Houston. The hospital was one of the first to start a child-life program, back in 1975, and currently has more than 30 specialists on staff, Chong said.

"We familiarize (children) with things in the hospital and try to make them less scary," Chong said. "We also explain things in a developmentally appropriate way."

Wiley uses several techniques to help "normalize" the environment. She's staged scavenger hunts so the children know what their hospital wing looks like. She's played guessing games with the children so they learn the names of common medical items. She shows them pictures illustrating procedures, and explains in terms children can understand.

She also offers suggestions to families on coping with the child's hospitalization.

"I try to reach as many kids and families as I can," Wiley said.

Sometimes, all the children need is some playtime to restore a feeling of normalcy, said Maricela Medina, a child-life specialist at Valley Baptist Medical Center-Harlingen. Medina has been at the facility for five years, and has worked as a child-life specialist for 25 years.

Play is an important part of the healing process," Medina said. "Kids get better faster if they're in good spirits, if they have something to look forward to."

But the profession also involves more than play, she said.

"If you help meet children and families' emotional needs, and offer a positive, child-friendly environment, they feel that maybe the hospital stay isn't so bad after all," Medina said.

Some studies have suggested that the intervention of child-life specialists helps children stay calm during stressful procedures, like inserting catheters or undergoing outpatient surgery.

"I think child life has definitely gotten more respect, and now we have opportunities to do more than just run a playroom," Chong said.

Patricia, Elizabeth's mother, saw a big difference in her daughter after her interactions with Wiley.

"The activities help, because otherwise she's cooped up all day," Waldridge said. "She's afraid of needles and shots, and (Wiley) has helped ... She's helped a lot."