Child life specialist calms kids before surgery

By Maureen Gilmer, Riley Children’s Health senior writer, mgilmer1@iuhealth.org

Bridget Franklin bops from room to room in the pre-op area on the second floor of Simon Family Tower, checking on patients who are being prepped for surgery.

As a certified child life specialist for Riley Children’s Health, her goal is to calm fears and wipe away tears by teaching, listening and encouraging the kids in her care as they prepare to go into the operating room.

For Hadley Bender, 11, Franklin talks about the mask she will wear as the anesthesia is delivered. With Franklin’s help, Hadley has decorated her mask with stickers and used a root beer-scented lip balm on the mask to lull her to sleep.

Hadley, who is accompanied by her mom and grandma, is calm and relaxed, even though this is the first time she has had any kind of medical procedure at Riley.

“She’s a rock star with all of this,” said her mom, Megan Turner.

Down the hall, a preschooler is a little antsy as she’s getting ready for surgery, so Franklin walks with her out of the pre-op room to select a push car to distract her for a few minutes.

Franklin has a “Mary Poppins” bag filled with other items to distract – a glitter wand, squishy donut-shaped stress balls and Pop Its – as well as items to educate, including photos of the OR and cards with simplified explanations of procedures.

Her approach to patients varies, depending on their age, type of procedure and level of anxiety, but the goal is always the same – to help them understand step by step what will be happening, to answer questions and to advocate for them.

It’s a job that Franklin dearly loves in a place that holds special significance for her. Her brother was treated for a brain tumor at Riley nearly 15 years ago.

The Evansville native remembers coming to the hospital as a 12-year-old to visit her older brother, Josh, throughout his treatment and during follow-up visits.

“I found out about child life through a sibling perspective,” she said, adding that her brother is doing well today – he’s married, a homeowner and a proud dog dad.

Franklin, 27, whose bachelor’s degree is in child development and family studies from Ball State University, earned her master’s in child life from Ohio University. She volunteered at Riley during her undergrad years, did a practicum at Oklahoma Children’s Hospital and completed an internship at American Family Children’s Hospital in Wisconsin.

All of that preparation led her right back to Riley 2½ years ago, which was her end goal but something she didn’t expect to happen so quickly.

“It’s a full-circle moment coming back,” she said. “I love this area because you get to do so much in such a short time. Often this is the biggest medical thing a child has gone through, whether it’s a typical procedure like tonsils or ear tubes, or something like a spinal fusion.

“We get to see different populations and different procedures. We support them in pre-op, all the way through induction until they’re asleep in the OR,” she added.

That’s right, Franklin follows patients into one of the 16 operating rooms on the second floor, staying until they are asleep.

“We’re so privileged that we are integrated so much into the ORs,” she said. “We have a great rapport with the anesthesiologists and the surgery teams.”

Franklin credits one of her child life colleagues on the unit, Lindsay Morgan, for expanding the role on the surgery unit.

“It’s not common in a lot of children’s hospitals to go into the OR," she said. "We help create a plan, whether it’s for a patient who needs lots of sensory support or our nursing staff has let us know that a patient is particularly anxious, so everyone’s safe and understands what’s helpful and what’s not helpful.”

For her part, Morgan describes Franklin as "an absolute ray of sunshine to our patients, families and staff."

"She does a wonderful job connecting with the kids to prepare them for surgery, builds them up so they're confident when walking to the OR and supports them during anesthesia induction," Morgan said.

"We see the impact she has on patients daily as she's always getting a thank you from families and a hug from patients as they walk out the door. It is an honor to work alongside her every day."

Not surprisingly, the biggest misconception about child life specialists is that they are here to just play with kids, Franklin said.

“We use a lot of play in our interventions – play is universal – but it’s never just play. We’re using it to assess, we’re using it to teach ... in a way kids can understand.”

She knows that child life looks different throughout the hospital because the patient population and medical specialty can be so different.

“Child life on the PICU is very different from child life on the second floor,” she said. “A lot of our role is to be extra support that might look like a teacher, or giving a hand to squeeze, or helping someone mark a milestone.”

The most rewarding part of job, she said, is helping kids go through hard things and giving them the tools to cope, revealing their strength, even when there might be tears.

“Crying is coping. It’s a high-stress day for kids, who are also feeling the emotions of their parents,” she said. “Being anxious for something you’ve never done before or is medically invasive is appropriate. It’s their body trying to regulate their emotions.”

So while crying is OK, she said, she tries to help them through those moments by focusing on ways to keep their body calm. That could be big breaths or a squishy stress ball or something else.

She uses those same devices in her own life.

“Many times after I finish a day on the unit and I’m working at the computer, I still have a stress ball in my hand,” she said. “Self-care is very important in this field.”

Outside the hospital, Franklin is planning her September wedding to fiancé Aaron Beck, and things are falling into place nicely, she said.

“I found my wedding dress and the venue on the same weekend. I credit a lot of it to God.”

On her days off, she likes to spend time outdoors but also indulges in what she laughingly calls “grandma hobbies” – crocheting, knitting and watching documentaries.

Photos submitted and by Mike Dickbernd, IU Health visual journalist, mdickbernd@iuhealth.org