Of Hospitals that Seem Otherwise

On Tuesday, February 26th, I will be going into work late because I will be listening in on a formal presentation that my mentor is giving at the Biltmore in Phoenix. The presentation is a lecture-type format, and will be discussing obesity, the causes of it, and the best way to deal with it.

Today, during lunch, I discussed the hospital with my mentor. If you have not visited the Phoenix Children's Hospital, I highly recommended you find some time to volunteer in it. The hospital is unlike any other hospital I have ever seen. To begin with, it is very easy to forget that you are in a hospital at all. This is partially due to the architecture, and partially due to the atmosphere the staff helps create.

Phoenix Children's is extremely well built. Everything is colorful, and serious efforts have been made to ensure that kids are not scared of it. Every wall is painted in a different color. The tiles are rainbow, and walking through the hospital to the emergency section, the tiles are colorful circles. There are giant windows everywhere which showcase a garden, and even a massive "laser wall" that consists of warped stained glass and moving projections of flowers and hearts that could easily belong in the Children's Museum of Phoenix. Each patient at Phoenix Children's has their own room. Some cases are extremely severe at the hospital, and there are notifications placed on the doors of each room which basically correspond to hazmat regulations (wear full body protections, refrain from contact, air controlled, etc.). However, the signs that indicate to doctors what to precautions to take consist of colorful laminated squares with pictures of smiling turtles, grinning rabbits, and cartoon figurines. Additionally, there are teddy bears that doctors put tiny IVs on to show kids exactly what will be done to them. There is even a tiny MRI machine that doctors but Barbie through to show kids how it works. Most impressively, all the medical equipment has been made to look, if not nice, then certainly less intimidating. sheets and pills are hid behind in-wall closets, and nurses wear bright scrubs often adorned with cartoon characters. The whole set-up of the place is really very impressive.

Additionally, the people that Phoenix Children's hires are just nice. Everyone smiles and is keen to have a quick conversation on how your day has been. Going up the elevators, a doctor on his way to do surgery was telling me about good hikes in the area. I have visited other hospitals to do volunteer work and sit in on surgeries before, and while the caliber of care and professionalism was of equal or greater caliber as Phoenix Children's, the general atmosphere of the Children's Hospital is much less stressful than at other places. It is not that there aren’t things to be stressed about--there certainly are-- it is that major precautions have been taken to make a family's stay as least awful as it can be.

 Hoping you all stay safe, healthy, and colorful,
Best,
Lior