Surgery, whether you’re a child or a grown-up is always a stressful time for the patient. As relaxed as you’d like to be, it’s hard to do that as you’re being wheeled to the operating room.
It’s even more stressful for children. It’s harder to teach them to calm down and to relax and visualize a calmer self when they don’t really understand what is happening.
What they know is to show or broadcast their emotions, usually through tears and screams, before surgery. So most doctors, with the parents’ consent, administer sedatives for a scream-free trip to the operating room. But that’s not really the best way to do that now, is it?
How do you help calm down a pediatric patient before surgery?
At the Doctors Medical Center in Modesto, California, they figured out a great way to do this. They have a black remote-controlled Mercedes Benz available for the pediatric patient to drive.
“It can be traumatizing for a young patient to be peeled away from their parents as they head into surgery,” the hospital said. “This truly helps everyone involved.”
This came to mind when a resident nurse saw the same principle applied at a children’s hospital in Florida.
“Why can’t we have that here?” she asked before she pitched to her boss.
Her boss loved the idea and went online to look for a toy car. They found the black Mercedes Benz on Amazon for $260.
Since they implemented this “policy”, they’ve observed that the children’s anxiety and stress disappear before the surgery.
“These sweet rides take our smallest patients to the operating room,” the hospital told PEOPLE. “The goal is to reduce anxiety and stress, and make the experience less scary for everyone involved.”
The children’s faces light up every time they’re informed that they can drive the car to the operating room.
“When the children find out they can go into the operating room riding in a cool little car, they light up, and in most cases, their fears melt away,” the hospital said. “In addition, when parents see their children put at ease, it puts them at ease as well.”
There are no more screaming children on the way to the operating room and fewer parents crying, too.
They acquired the black Mercedes in 2018 through an online purchase.
And in early 2019, the Doctors Medical Center was so grateful when an employee and her family donated another mini-car to their collection.
Now, the children can choose to drive a black Mercedes Benz or a Pink Volkswagen Beetle!
The cars do have restrictions though. They can only accommodate pediatric patients between the ages of two and seven years old and weigh less than 66lbs.
Hopefully, they’ll be able to provide a car for pediatric patients a few years older and are therefore bigger, heavier, and taller.
After all, every child deserves to have a trauma-free transition before surgery, right?
Since people found out about the cars, the hospital has received many offers to donate even more cars to help pediatric patients and their parents during this traumatic stage.
The hospital is thrilled at the kind gesture and has told everyone who wants to donate to shoot them an email so they can work something out.
Watch the video below to see the children ride with style to the operating room.
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