It's hard to say who's more nervous when a child is about to undergo surgery: the child or the parents? To put everyone's mind at ease, we developed an online virtual tour of our facility, the Surgery Center of Weston at Broward Health in Florida, that teaches children and their families about the surgical process.
Our pediatric pre-operative photo tour consists of 15 slides with captions that convey basic information about what children will experience the day of surgery, from pre-op to PACU. (Click on the image above to take the tour.) The slides are easy to read, colorful and include detailed photos of each step of the process. By viewing the tour, children "meet" some of the staff who'll care for them, and learn about what's going to happen and what they'll see.
On a few slides, we included links to KidsHealth, a fun, interactive website designed specifically for parents, teens and kids that explains medical terminology. We also listed the phone number to our pre-op department so parents can call if they have questions after viewing the slides with their children.
To create the tour, we reviewed each step of the perioperative process from the patient's perspective, took pictures that portray the steps and designed the slides to provide basic and easy-to-understand information. The "mother" is actually a nurse who works in our center; the "patient" is her daughter. Our pediatric surgeons really like the tour. In fact, many have linked to it from their practice's websites.
Betty Capozzi, RN, CAPA
Ms. Capozzi is regional nurse manager of surgical services at the Surgery Center of Weston at Broward Health in Weston, Fla.
