For our project, my husband and I chose to make surgical dolls and gowns to donate to Primary Children’s Hospital. We accomplished this by making a goal to create 180 dolls and 180 gowns. We then set up a fundraiser to support our project and purchased the supplies needed. To accomplish this goal, we recruited volunteers and with their help, we cut, sewed, stuffed, and dressed the dolls. We ended up making 100 dolls and 100 gowns to meet time and budget requirements.

 

The purpose of the dolls, and the overall purpose of our project, is to provide companionship and comfort for children who are in the hospital. In addition, the dolls are used by medical staff to help children understand procedures that they may require while in the hospital. The dolls are made to be very plain to allow medical staff and the children to draw on them for creative purposes and for teaching. This gives the children a chance to have some fun and to understand their medical care more clearly. Our hope is that our dolls ease some of the stress experienced by children in the hospital.

 

We originally learned of these dolls through my mother-in-law. After we had read more about them, we both were able to see a couple of the dolls in a clinical setting and heard some stories about the positive effects of the dolls. The stories are what inspired us to make these dolls. With both of us having a background in nursing, we have seen the stress that hospitalization can have on adults, let alone children. We wanted to contribute something that would relieve some of that stress in addition to improving communication between hospital staff and patients.