At the faculty of medicine, regarding thirty children from the large section of the Schongauer nursery school wait, a cuddly toy in their hands. Broken legs, headaches, stomach aches, cuts… The list of their worries is long.
“I’m Lola and I’m a teddy bear specialist. Why is your teddy coming to see the doctor today?”asks a student.
“It hurts here”, replies Youssouf, 5, showing the paw of his stuffed cow called “Boug”. Conscientious, the little boy brought the animal’s health book, which appears drawn there, with its age (4 years) and its size (25 centimeters).
Sprain or broken leg? To check, head to the MRI. On a black and white image the fracture is visible; a passage through the operating theater is essential.
“We’re going to put a mask on him to put him to sleep, so he won’t feel anything. Are you doing it?”
In a surgical gown, Youssouf puts his cuddly toy to sleep before bandaging his leg. But the journey of the toy is not over: place for vaccines and blood tests.
“I already did a blood test myself and I was brave”, boasts the little boy. By reproducing this gesture on his stuffed toy, he finds that everything is going well, and that is the whole point of the operation.
“No apprehension”
“Often when children arrive at the hospital they are a little confused. Our goal is to show them how it is and so that they do not have apprehension when they see white coats for the first time”explains Lola Ruff, a third-year medical student.
“If they can have a good first impression, that’s very important to us”she adds.
Around forty students in medicine, pharmacy, dentistry, osteopathy and nursing students devote four mornings to caring for the little ones. They explain their specialty to the children and give them a few lessons in anatomy, using for example a disemboweled giant bear from which a long sausage escapes.
“Wow is that a snake?” Youssouf asks. “No it’s the gut”corrects Elsa, a medical student.
This foray into the world of medicine is also an opportunity to review certain gestures such as washing hands and brushing teeth.
For Roselyne Saettler, teacher in large section at the Schongauer school, located in a priority district of the city’s policy, these are very useful reminders: “children lack hygiene rules”she notes.
Before coming with her class, she asked everyone to choose a soft toy and imagine their symptoms because “taking on the role of parent for them is more reassuring, it allows them to detach themselves from the situation”.
Reliving past situations often loosens tongues, as for Safiya, 5, who remembers having had a vaccine: “It was a little scary but it didn’t hurt”.
For the students, the morning also serves as training, underlines Lola Ruff. “The child is a patient who is really different, since we will not be able to talk to him like an adult, we will have to use another vocabulary”.
And in the face of sometimes silent children, “it’s a good challenge” to get them to express themselves, she continues. “Some children, when they see us coming, it can scare them and as we see that they are cheering up, that they feel better and there, it’s won for us”.
