Magic in healthcare?

Just about every parent has had the dreaded experience of dealing with a child’s apprehension and anxiety during a visit to the doctor, dentist, or hospital facility.

In today’s world of overloaded schedules and the hectic demands of high patient volume—with health-care professionals hastily grabbing charts and focusing on routine medical histories, ailments, or treatments—it can be easy to forget or just plain overlook a child’s intimidation.

 

Harrison Carroll & Scott Tokar

Think back for a moment to your own childhood visits to the doctor. Remember the overpowering sense of vulnerability that swept through your consciousness as you surveyed a roomful of odd-looking things that might be used to poke, prod, and hammer you? Do you remember gazing at that doctor in the odd-looking sci-fi coat, holding that giant needle that was about to stab you? The practice of medicine has advanced by leaps and bounds through the years, but children’s trepidations remain as real and intense as they were when your great grandparents were young. And, unfortunately, many of these conditioned fear responses can follow an individual all the way through adulthood and well into old age.

Traditionally, pediatricians have attempted everything they can—from hanging brightly colored posters on the wall to giving out lollipop rewards following successful exams—to alleviate the fears associated with a child’s visit to the doctor. Today it’s not unusual to find medical offices with elevated toy trains, Nickelodeon on the “big screen,” and state-of-the-art video games in the waiting room. Anything that can be done to reduce patient stress can have a positive impact on a medical practice. Most likely, you have your favorite techniques already in place, and we don’t want to change those. Our aim, through Side-Fx, is to provide you with new and unexpected methods that challenge you to think outside the box and ultimately make your patient interaction more productive, healing, and calming.

Many of the physicians involved in the creation of Side-Fx have told us that once they learned to invest a small amount of time in patient interaction up front, they realized immeasurable results in both productivity and satisfaction later on. By minimizing the unproductive time traditionally needed to calm a screaming, crying, or frightened child, these physicians were able to attend to their next patient sooner and in a more relaxed mood. In short, not only do they have happier patients, but their offices also become more efficient…and they tell us that they are able to end the day more joyfully and with less stress.

The purpose of Side-Fx is to provide the health-care professional, with tools and techniques specifically designed to divert a child’s mind from the many fears associated with a visit to the doctor. By creating a surprise-filled, magical atmosphere for your patients, their habitual nervousness and concern are overcome by wonder and amazement.

Scott and Harrison have spent countless hours researching, creating, and adapting a unique collection of illusions, puzzles, and conundrums specifically designed to assist health-care professionals in distracting and disarming apprehensive patients. In both the book and the DVD you will find numerous tricks, ploys, and gambits that are easy to perform and reproduce. The simple, magical methods should help put the little people seen in practice at ease—and, hopefully, they’ll see the clinician more as a person and not as a terrifying mad scientist. Imagine transforming a troubled or even disorderly patient into a receptive, captivated, happy child who isn’t undermining your goals but cheerfully facilitating them instead.

We are aware that the busy health-care provider doesn’t have the time to collect props and learn intricate sleight-of-hand techniques. Therefore, we gathered effects that can be quickly mastered with everyday items found in most examining rooms and offices.

While writing Side-Fx, the authors originally envisioned a project focused solely on the pediatric patient. During development, however, physicians told us time and time again that many of these tricks are ideal relationship builders for use with all age groups and within a wide range of medical specialties. As an example, our trick The Paralyzed Finger is specifically targeted to help adult family members understand the frustration experienced by a cerebral palsy patient or a stroke victim. The effect The Leaping Rubber Band has a long history of being useful in connection with physical therapy through the Daniel Freeman Memorial Hospital program called “Project Magic.” And radiological technicians just love the optical trick called The Hole in the Hand, which helps them explain the differences in diagnostic modalities available today.

With a little rehearsal and experience, we believe that you will start to create some awe and wonder in your own specialty. Relax, have fun, and allow yourself to be magical—and maybe your patients will actually look forward to the next time they get to visit their favorite “clinician magician”!