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While visiting the doctor can sometimes be a frightening prospect for young children, it can be just as scary for young, inexperienced doctors who treat them.

When very young children cannot articulate where it hurts or how they feel, diagnosing and treating them can be difficult.

So UWA medical students, through the Interhealth program of the WA Medical Students' Society (WAMSS), are working on helping both parties.

They are running a volunteer Teddy Bear Hospital, taking their program to kindergartens, pre-schools and year one primary school students.

The program helps to lessen children's anxiety towards doctors; promotes a healthy lifestyle; and improves medical students' communication with and understanding of young children.

A group of eight students visited the Telethon Speech and Hearing Centre in Wembley recently and ‘cured' the children's teddies of ailments ranging from a broken leg to a sore tummy.

"The children use their teddies to talk to the ‘teddy doctors' about sickness and pain and see how their teddies are treated with respect and kindness," said Jess Hillwood, from WAMSS.

Healthy lifestyle tips such wearing a hat in the sun, eating fruit and vegetables and frequently washing hands are delivered through ‘waiting room' activities, songs, games and individual visits to the teddy doctors.

With more than 200 students in WAMSS, the society hopes to extend the Teddy Bear Hospital program to rural centres and to more disadvantaged children.

Published in UWA News , 30 May 2011