Directed by a nurse from its Recovery Room, Guelph General Hospital now has produced a video to help children overcome some of their fears they face when coming to the hospital for surgery. 

  “It was clear to my colleagues and I that we needed to better support the children and their parents who were coming in for surgery. Although we offer tours to them beforehand, many just can’t get here to take advantage,” said Diane Stuart, an RN in the Post Anesthetic Care Unit. “My Director supported my applying for a Late Career Nurse Initiative grant and with it we arranged for the making of a video.” 

The final result is a three-minute video posted on the Hospital’s web site that takes the young viewer through the entire process of coming in for surgery, recovering and then going home. It stars a furry green puppet as the patient and a large teddy bear as the parent. The video was taken and produced by local videographer Guy Kostrey of Sceneskape.com. 

In addition to the video, Stuart produced an information brochure that will be distributed to community locations such as doctors’ offices from which children are referred for surgery. 

“This was a huge learning curve for me, who has never had an office-type job,” Stuart explained. “Would I do it again? Yes. I am already looking at options for this year’s Late Nurse Career Initiative.” 

The Late Career Initiative is a program that supports nurses over age 55 to spend part of their time doing less physically demanding work. It is an effort to create an improved work environment and ultimately retain this important group of nurses. This initiative recognizes that the knowledge late career nurses bring to their work is of inestimable value and is an integral component to quality care.