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.

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.