School Re-Entry Reflection
Today, February 1, 2017, was a more unique day than most. First, when checking our census, Missy and I noticed that a patient was going to surgery soon, so we ran down to 4 west and did some verbal pre-op teaching before she was taken to surgery. This taught me that there isn’t a typical day in child life and that a beneficial trait to have as a child life specialist is flexibility and the ability to go with the flow. Missy and I planned to go ahead with our morning play session, and also intended to facilitate a group play session later in the afternoon since we were covering 4 west and 7 east and had a surplus of adolescent male patients that morning. I also had the unique and amazing opportunity to attend a school re-entry with Taryn!
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The school re-entry was with a seventh grade male who had finished treatment for Burkitt’s Lymphoma and was returning to school in two days. The presentation was to about 100+ seventh and eighth graders at a Catholic junior high school. This was such a special experience and I am incredibly grateful that I got to observe this as an intern. It was great to see the patient take pride in answering questions and helping to present the PowerPoint presentation (as per his developmental age where school-age children show pride in socialization/accomplishments). The students were receptive to the information, were great listeners, and were quite intelligent with their base knowledge/questions regarding the presentation. My personal favorite part of the school re-entry was that the patient was already being treated like a normal boy his age, which was evidenced by the majority of the questions being asked by students revolved around the Lego kits the patient created when hospitalized. An insight that Taryn and I discussed was that these students didn’t ask any questions about death. Taryn informed me that typically, Catholic school students do not ask about death during a school re-entry. In all, this was such an exciting and special experience. Overall, today was a successful and long day! I was able to facilitate a therapeutic and normative play activity and attend a school re-entry. I was
The school re-entry was with a seventh grade male who had finished treatment for Burkitt’s Lymphoma and was returning to school in two days. The presentation was to about 100+ seventh and eighth graders at a Catholic junior high school. This was such a special experience and I am incredibly grateful that I got to observe this as an intern. It was great to see the patient take pride in answering questions and helping to present the PowerPoint presentation (as per his developmental age where school-age children show pride in socialization/accomplishments). The students were receptive to the information, were great listeners, and were quite intelligent with their base knowledge/questions regarding the presentation. My personal favorite part of the school re-entry was that the patient was already being treated like a normal boy his age, which was evidenced by the majority of the questions being asked by students revolved around the Lego kits the patient created when hospitalized. An insight that Taryn and I discussed was that these students didn’t ask any questions about death. Taryn informed me that typically, Catholic school students do not ask about death during a school re-entry. In all, this was such an exciting and special experience. Overall, today was a successful and long day! I was able to facilitate a therapeutic and normative play activity and attend a school re-entry. I was