Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Pediatrics
A club sponsored by the Parenting Center at Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai has inspired a love for running in about 70 patients ages 5 to 12. From April to June, the Mount Sinai Mighty Milers met on Wednesdays in Central Park to chat, stretch, and run on the half-mile East Meadow loop. Along the way, they were chaperoned by 20 volunteers, including medical students, residents, attendings, nurses, social workers, and support staff.
“Wednesday afternoon quickly became the highlight of the week for everyone involved,” says Keith J. Benkov, MD, Associate Professor of Pediatrics, and Gastroenterology, who was an organizer, along with Abby T. Klock, MS, Child Life Specialist; Katie Connolly, Program Coordinator, and Mariel Benjamin, LCSW, both of the Parenting Center; and Michael N. Yaker, MD, Assistant Clinical Professor of Pediatrics, and founding partner of Westside Pediatrics. The program will return in October. For more information, contact sinaimightymilers@mssm.edu.
Pictured above, Delilah Rodriguez (with a purple friend) and Ezra Rzetelny; George Hendy getting a high five from Michael N. Yaker, MD; and runners at the starting line.
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Pediatrics
WATCH: Lorraine Rodriguez, MSN, BSN, RN, FNP, discusses her special connection with Make-A-Wish.
Two members of the Mount Sinai Health System, Lorraine Rodriguez, MSN, BSN, RN, FNP, and Samantha Vasquez, LMSW, were chosen last spring to promote World Wish Day® on behalf of the Make-A-Wish ® Foundation, an international organization that has granted the wishes of more than 400,000 seriously ill children. In the past few years, Ms. Rodriguez, a nurse practitioner with the Mount Sinai Epilepsy Center, and Ms. Vasquez, a social worker within the Pediatric Hematology-Oncology Division of The Mount Sinai Hospital, have referred more than 80 children to the Make-A-Wish Foundation. The organization’s stated goal is to grant one wish to every eligible child.
WATCH: Samantha Vasquez, LMSW, explains the healing power of wishes.
World Wish Day is an annual event that honors medical professionals, donors, volunteers, and sponsors, as well as the children and their families whose lives are touched by the granted wishes. Wishes have included visits with sports or musical celebrities, serving as a firefighter for a day, or receiving a toy playhouse.
Ms. Rodriguez was honored by being featured on a Make-A-Wish billboard in Times Square and by ringing the Nasdaq Stock Market bell at the start of business, tributes that she says brought tears to her eyes. Her patients’ wishes help them heal, Ms. Rodriguez adds. “When the children come for follow-up visits you see they’re smiling, jumping, having hope. You can sense that sparkle in their eyes. They’re happy.”
Ms. Vasquez was featured in an advertisement for Make-A-Wish that appeared in TIME magazine. “It is not easy for kids to undergo a severe treatment like chemotherapy,” she says. “When I talk to them about their wishes, they smile. It is rewarding to be able to witness that joy and hope.”
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Community, Featured, Patient Stories, Pediatrics
Aiden Schaefer, far right, and his brother, Mason, snuggle with Professor Bunsen Honeydew, Kravis Children’s Hospital’s new full-time employee.
Two-year-old Aiden Schaefer was battling leukemia, with long hospital stays, uncomfortable medical procedures, and time spent away from his twin brother, Mason, when a gentle young service dog, Professor Bunsen Honeydew, began keeping him company as part of a new program at Kravis Children’s Hospital at Mount Sinai. Denise Schaefer says her son Aiden “fell in love instantly” with the friendly golden doodle. Aiden’s experience “was not about the medicine or the doctors, it was about seeing Professor.”
Thanks to an innovative program, Paws & Play, supported by PetSmart Charities® at Kravis Children’s Hospital, the highly trained facility dog is now a full-time employee at Mount Sinai. Kravis launched the program—the first of its kind in New York State—with a grant from PetSmart Charities. Under the direction of handlers Ali Spike, MS, Certified Child Life Specialist, Toshiko Nonaka, MS, Certified Child Life Specialist, and Morgan Stojanowski,
Follow Professor Bunsen Honeydew’s adventures on Instagram.
Child Life Program Assistant Director, Professor works with patients in the Blau Center for Children’s Cancer and Blood Disease, the Alice Gottesman Bayer Pediatric Intensive Care Unit, and inpatient units.
Working in conjunction with the doctors and nurses who care for the physical well-being of patients, Professor provides emotional support. He helps to ease the pain or anxiety that accompanies medical procedures, and long hospitalizations and treatments, while improving the socialization, motivation, and overall temperament of pediatric patients.
“At Kravis, we are surrounded by excellence, great love, and care for families,” says Diane C. Rode, MPS, Child Life Program Director. “This is a magnificent opportunity for us to continue humanizing the health care we provide.”
Nov 1, 2016 | Health Tips, Pediatric Care, Pediatrics, Your Health
Image Courtesy Of: www.bbc.com
Guest Post by Samantha Rose, NP, a pediatric nurse practitioner on the pediatric pulmonology team at The Mount Sinai Hospital
Starting a new school year can be stressful for all families: asthma or not. If you are the parent of a child with asthma, here are a few tips to start off the school year stress- and symptom-free (more…)
Nov 1, 2016 | Health Tips, Pediatric Care, Pediatrics, Your Health
Image Courtesy Of: www.parentspartner.com
Here at the Mount Sinai Parenting Center we receive many questions about hard to manage child behavior. In this blog post, Bronwyn Charlton, PhD, Clinical Instructor in the Department of Pediatrics at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, details her response to a common parental complaint. (more…)
Updated on Jun 30, 2022 | Patient Story, Pediatric Care, Pediatrics, Transplant
Guest post by Kelly Smith, donate life advocate and Cloudy Day Gray blogger.
Before Matilda was born, I didn’t know anything about pediatric organ donation. I had never really considered the fact that children even experienced organ failure. And, I certainly had never considered the fact that the organ donors may need to be children themselves. These aren’t the things that parents want to think about. (more…)
