It is a common fact that most, if not all children, are afraid of hospitals and doctors

offices. It is difficult to evaluate a distressed children, or even adult, at any age. Recent studies in
Australia have proven that children are more comfortable with a warming, cuddly, stuffed
animal. With this image in mind, Australian medical doctors, nurses, and even students
becoming doctors discovered the idea of a Teddy Bear Hospital. The idea of a TBH was to make
doctor and hospital visits easier for not only the children and their families, but for the staff and
other patients. The first Teddy Bear Hospital was introduced into Australia in 2006. It was a
successful hit! The TBH was designed to make upcoming doctors and nurses more familiar with
children and their issues. It was also established to help children become more comfortable with
doctors, nurses, hospitals, medical instruments, and different noises/environments. By being
accompanied with a fluffy teddy bear, the childrens nerves were eased. Because of this, doctors
were able to perform the required tests to make sure the patients could be healed properly.
Because the upcoming/practicing doctors were able to record their tests on the teddy bears, they
were able to observe the behavior of the children. In the long run, the use of a TBH made it
simpler for the practicing doctors to comprehend how to work with children.
For interning medical students, a Teddy Bear Hospital is the perfect place to practice
their new knowledge of the medical field. For children who are afraid of doctors and hospitals,
seeing their sick, injured teddy bear become healed and healthy again helps them realize that
doctors are there to help them and hospitals are not as scary as they may seem. A TBH is the
perfect way to help children overcome their fear of medical places and people. A TBH is also the
perfect place for medical interning students to become comfortable around weary children and
get some good practice in. I found this site to be very credible because it was a written
letter/response to an article. This response was written by medical doctors who have actually
tested a TBH and found it to be very helpful. They wrote their findings as a response to the
Australian article. (Kaufman, J., Modak, M., & Moylan, S. (2012). THE TEDDY BEAR
HOSPITAL IN AUSTRALIA. Journal Of Paediatrics & Child Health, 48(6), 541-542.
doi:10.1111/j.1440-1754.2012.02482.x)
I really enjoyed reading this article because my senior mastery project is to create a
TBH.