On a recent morning in Operating Room 10 at the NIH Clinical Center, a dozen kids in yellow t-shirts and green surgical scrubs were giving Doogie Howser, MD, a run for his money.
Ellis Dunca, an 8-year-old former bone marrow transplant recipient, stood on a step stool to intubate a mannequin, deftly navigating its vocal cords under the watchful eye of pediatric anesthesiologist Dr. Muhammad Yousef.
“I love it!” cheered Dr. Yousef, with the outsize energy of a camp counselor. “You guys are getting it on the first try.”
Other visitors took their turns manipulating the controls of a Da Vinci XI robotic surgical system, coached by surgical technologist Paul Gawlik. The budding surgeons maneuvered the device’s spider-like mechanical arms to remove toy darts from a block of blue foam inside the abdomen of another mannequin.
The hands-on activities were part of Super Sibling and Super Star Day, an annual day-long event for the siblings of NIH Clinical Center pediatric patients organized by staff of the Children’s Inn at NIH.
After their OR visit, the group visited the Clinical Center’s Department of Laboratory Medicine, where they got to peer at microorganisms under microscopes, smear petri dishes with yogurt to culture bacteria and engage in other activities. Next up: a visit to learn about the brain and experience a mock MRI machine with NIMH, lunch at the Children’s Inn, therapeutic games, music and a closing ceremony complete with a standing ovation.
Well into its second decade, Super Sibling and Super Star Day is the brainchild of Dr. Lori Wiener, a senior associate scientist in the Pediatric Oncology Branch of the Center for Cancer Research at the National Cancer Institute.
A social worker by training, Wiener is an expert in caring for the psychological and social needs of pediatric, adolescent and young adult patients with critical illness. Wiener said the idea for Super Sibling Day sprang from the need she saw in the siblings of young Clinical Center patients.
“Their pain is often pretty invisible, and they have to sacrifice a lot for their brothers and sisters,” Wiener said. “And so we wanted a day that was just all about them.”
The goal is to make siblings “feel very special … that people are noticing them,” Wiener said. “Not because of medical illness, but because they are very special people on their own and they play a very important role in their family.”
Siblings aren’t the only participants made to feel special. Yousef, the pediatric anesthesiologist, or “Dr. Mo” as he is known to his patients, has volunteered for Super Sibling Day from the start. The event, he says, is “one of the best workdays I have here my whole year.”
This year marked the first time pediatric patients were also included. Eight-year-old Ellis received her bone marrow transplant at the Clinical Center two years ago. She and her mother Yataa Dunca, who originally hail from Vancouver, BC but now live in Georgia, were back on campus for a related follow-up.
Dunca beamed as her daughter used a video laryngoscope and talked with Dr. Mo. “She grew up in a hospital, and now she’s learning. She’s learning.”
“NIH was the only hospital in the world who would take her,” Dunca said, adding that her daughter was now thriving. “Because of NIH, I get to be with my angel on Earth.”
—Sean Markey