The Teddy Bear Hospital 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.
The Teddy Bear Hospital (TBH) is proudly supported by our sponsors.
Featured content
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At the Royal Children's Hospital
Growing out of a medical student-led volunteer initiative, the Teddy Bear Hospital is now set to become a regular feature at the Royal Children's Hospital.
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Good Friday Appeal
Each year the Good Friday Appeal brings together people from all parts of the community to raise much needed funds for equipment, research and education to support the work of The Royal Children's Hospital.
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Chadstone
The Teddy Bear Hospital runs "The Teddy Winter Check-Up" event at Chadstone - The Fashion Capital.
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Roadshow Events
Information about regional Victoria events within local communities.
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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.
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.
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.
Our team
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2022
Coordinators: Jenny Lee and Melissa Tien
Secretary: Kate Wishart
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2021
Coordinators: Chelsea Xu and Kate Wishart
Secretary: Kathy Zhang
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2020
Coordinators: Chiara Dogliotti and Chelsea Xu
Secretary: Kathy Zhang
Event Coordinator: Mimi Gemmell
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2019
Coordinators: Adrienne Lui and Maleck Louis
Secretary: David Morgan
Event Coordinator: Mimi Gemmell
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2018
Coordinators: Sarah Dahlgren Allen and David Morgan
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2017
Coordinators: Oshi Swarup and Paul Johnson
Event coordinator: Emily Jenkins
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2016
Coordinators: Kristy Mansour and Chris Lai
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2015
Coordinators: Megan Dynan and Veronia Jane
Supervising Academic: Professor Paul Monagle
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2014
Coordinators: John Politis and Andra Desra
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2013
Coordinators: Tracy Lim and John Politis
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2012
Coordinators: Bertha Wu and Huy Nguyen
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2011
Coordinator: XiuZhi Pham
2022 Committee
Past Committees
Get in touch
For enquiries about the Teddy Bear Hospital, please contact the Department of Paediatrics:
- Email: paeds-general-enquiries@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