Youngsters enjoy Interactive Theatres Open Day

A Theatres Open Day was held this month for colleagues and their children to see what the inside of a surgical theatre looks like.

This was an interactive day where kids dressed up in scrubs and were allowed into a theatre to have lots of fun.

There was a meet and greet by Surgeon Molly, the PAT dog, and Sian her owner who kindly gave up their time to come and welcome everybody.

Children were all given the chance to dress in surgical gowns or scrubs and activities included handwashing, airway management of a dummy, challenging laparoscopic activities for the older children and retrieving sweets laparoscopically for the youngsters, and more sweets were involved in open abdominal surgery on Annie the resus doll.

Nat's stage wounds went down well for both children and parents but this time, no-one wanted them dressing, and as usual CPR and AED awareness went down a treat.

Mathilde, Sharon and Lucy worked tirelessly trying to keep up with demand as everyone (the younger children) were queuing to make aprons with inflatable lungs.

There was also Mr Al Kadar, one of our general surgeons, getting involved in laparoscopic exercises even showed some of the older kids how to suture.

Vicky Jackson, Practice Development Facilitator, said:

“All in all it was a successful day for everyone:

“The volunteer theatre staff, Sharon, Sam, Mike, Nat, Nitika, Jacqui and Amrit were amazing and worked really hard to make it such a good experience for the children.

"But we also had help from Mathilde, a student physiologist and our enthusiastic work experience students Adam and Lucy, who all also wanted to get involved.”

The event was held ahead of National Operating Department Practitioners' (ODP) Day, which was celebrated on Wednesday, 14th May.

This day was a chance to recognise and celebrate the vital role of ODPs in patient care and to promote the profession.

Work experience is an important way to find out more about NHS careers.

East Cheshire NHS Trust has recently been awarded the Gold Quality Standard for work experience from NHS England, which demonstrates our commitment to excellent placements for the local community.

The Trust can support local students in Year 11 upwards or have dedicated work experience weeks in October and February half -term holidays for students in Year 10 and above.

If anyone is interested in work experience from September onwards, then to get in touch via the Vocational Learning & Development Team by emailing:

ecn-tr.vldt@nhs.net

Pictured - Youngsters took part in an interactive day where they dressed up in scrubs and were allowed into a theatre to have lots of fun.