Teddy Bear Picnic

Since starting medical school, I have been looking for extracurricular activities that I could become a part of, while still making sure I wasn't taking too much time from my studies. So, when I first heard about the "Teddy Bear Picnic" at an activities fair, I knew that it was something I wanted to be a part of.

This program was a one-day fair for local children in the East Lansing community. The MSU Children's Health Initiative set up this fair to provide children with an educational and fun day of bringing their stuffed animals to the "Teddy Bear Hospital." There were a lot of different booths: ranging from general pediatrics, to pediatric oncology, to pediatric dentistry, to pediatric surgery, to pediatric dermatology. Each booth had its own unique  activities planned for the kids. Some of my personal favorites were a casting booth (sport's medicine) and a Pulmonology booth, which game the Teddy Bears some oxygen.

I was assigned to the "Cardiology" Booth. There were 4 main parts to what we did:
1) Listened to the teddy bear's heart with our stethescopes
2) Told the children that their bear's heart sounded healthy and talked to them about healthy things they can do to make sure they have a healthy heart like their furry friends (exercise, eat vegetables, etc).
3) Hooked their bears up to an echocardiogram (that had a film playing of a human heart) and teach the children the basics of how our heart pumps blood through our bodies.
4) Gave the children some coloring books and work sheets about heart anatomy and healthy heart choices.

The purpose of the day was to educate kids about the basic healthy aspects throughout the different booths and try to get them comfortable with the idea of going to a doctor.

It really was a great day and I am so happy that I became apart of Teddy Bear clinic during my first year, because that means I have three more years to be a part of it!


This video was from last years event, but you can still kind of see what its all about: