Can Eye Drops and Surgery Be Fun for Children? A Wilmer Doctor and Nurse Say Yes!

A combination of clinical experience and research for her Ph.D. spurred Lizzie Horn, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, to start playing with toys again. It all began with a 4-year-old patient, explains Horn, who frequently works with pediatric patients at the Wilmer Eye Institute, Johns Hopkins Medicine. This patient visited Wilmer monthly for surgery, and would often refuse his preoperative eye drops or to go back to the surgical suite. “I wondered, how can we improve this experience for him?” says Horn. Around the same time, Horn was researching patient anxiety and pain as a potential topic for her dissertation. Based on studies she had read, and asking her own children what they liked to play with, she decided to try a new tack: giving the young patient a fidget toy — a type of toy that provides a tactile experience. “Now, when he gets here, he comes and finds me and walks right back with me. It’s pretty amazing,” says Horn. Tina Tran, M.D., chief of anesthesiology for the Wilmer Eye Institute, explains, “We were using distraction techniques such as electronics or music. And then we noticed the things that made children the calmest were both parental presence and having something in their hands to fidget with.” These experiences inspired Horn and Tran to create an initiative to provide superhero capes and fidget toys to children who come to Wilmer for procedures that require anesthesia. Continue reading at hopkinsmedicine.org.