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Teddy Bear Hospital

 

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The Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) is a student-led, student-run initiative established in 2009, involving volunteers from Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences courses at the University of Melbourne.

The program aims to provide children with positive health care experiences, promote health and wellbeing in a fun and interactive way, while providing future healthcare professionals the opportunity to improve communication skills with children. We run two major events throughout the year - Teddy Bear Hospital at the Good Friday Appeal - Kids Day Out and the Chadstone Winter Check Up as well as various community and school outreach programs.

2024 Student Committee

The Teddy Bear Hospital is grateful to our sponsors for their support.

- Good Friday Appeal The Royal Children's Hospital

- Chadstone - The Fashion Capital

- The University of Melbourne

- Visy

- Air Services Australia

- The Hearld & Weekly Times

The Teddy Bear Hospital was established in 2009 and is run by students from the University of Melbourne, with the support of The Royal Children’s Hospital Department of Paediatrics.

The program aims to provide children with positive health care experiences, promote health and wellbeing, and increase health literacy in the community, while providing medicine and allied health students the opportunity to practice the skills necessary for successfully working with children.

Children bring a beloved teddy or soft toy to the mock hospital and act as the parents of a teddy with a problem. They actively participate in the check-up with the assistance of student volunteers. The check-ups engage children with concepts of health and wellbeing, improve health literacy and encourage healthy habits, such as nutrition and exercise.

The fun, relaxed atmosphere of Teddy Bear Hospital also allows children to interact with medicine and health care in a positive manner and ease any fears or anxieties they may have surrounding doctors visits, the hospital or medical procedures.

Teddy Bear Hospital also offers medicine and allied health students the opportunity to practice working with children and experience paediatric health care. Students practice important paediatric communication skills, such as building rapport and using child-friendly language. They also practice giving information and explaining concepts to participating children, who act as concerned teddy parents.

Disciplines over the years

In addition to their major annual events, the Good Friday Appeal and the Chadstone Winter Check-Up, Teddy Bear Hospital visits children at kindergartens, primary schools and community centres throughout the year.

TBH Full Year Totals

Each year, Teddy Bear Hospital provides hundreds of future doctors, nurses and allied health professionals with the experience and skills necessary to successfully work with children. The multidisciplinary nature and scale of Teddy Bear Hospital make it unique from other similar programs. Today, Teddy Bear Hospital has grown to include volunteers from across the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences, with medicine, nursing, physiotherapy, optometry, dentistry, audiology, speech pathology and music therapy, social work as well as passionate undergraduate students as our volunteers.

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Our Team

  • Coordinators: Felicity Thianesysavanh and Karin Ye

    Secretary: Grace You

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Aiko Ridwan and Brian Hao

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Audrey Lui and Maggie Gao

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Jenny Lee and Melissa Tien

    Secretary: Kate Wishart

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Chelsea Xu and Kate Wishart

    Secretary: Kathy Zhang

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Chiara Dogliotti and Chelsea Xu

    Secretary: Kathy Zhang

    Event Coordinator: Mimi Gemmell

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Adrienne Lui and Maleck Louis

    Secretary: David Morgan

    Event Coordinator: Mimi Gemmell

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Sarah Dahlgren Allen and David Morgan

  • Coordinators: Oshi Swarup and Paul Johnson

    Event coordinator: Emily Jenkins

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Kristy Mansour and Chris Lai

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: Megan Dynan and Veronia Jane

    Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle

  • Coordinators: John Politis and Andra Desra

Get in touch

For enquiries about the Teddy Bear Hospital, please contact the Department of Paediatrics:

  • Email: teddybear-hospital@unimelb.edu.au
  • Phone: +61 3 9345 7605

To stay up to date with the Teddy Bear Hospital, follow us on social media:

  • Facebook: Teddy Bear Hospital - Melbourne
  • Instagram: @teddybearhospital
  • Contact us

  • TBH Facebook
  • TBH Instagram
  • TBH Twitter

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