What 4-year-old likes going to the doctor?
When it’s a group of 10 preschoolers from the Community Nursery School of Wilton (CNSW) on a field trip to visit the AFC Urgent Care health center, they like it very much.
The CNSW class visited the AFC Urgent Care (just over the Norwalk/Wilton border on Rte. 7) last Friday, Oct. 21 with their teachers, Megan Scullin-Zaca and Meaghan Donovan, as part of a unit teaching about helpers in the community.
“We did a version of our ‘Ted E. Bear Urgent Care‘ event where we have a teddy bear named ‘Teddy’ as the patient, so the kids could see what happens from check-in to check-out. They saw our nurse, Viv, first to assess Teddy’s ailment, and then they saw our radiologist technologist, Dani, and got to learn about x-rays, which they were the most excited to see,” said Janet Nazarian, AFC’s director of marketing and community relations. “We gave them copies of a Teddy Bear x-ray they could take with them. Then Dr. Tony Bhatnagar took them to the procedure room, where they learned about stitches and splints.”
Nazarian says AFC Urgent Care regularly does events like this as a way to connect to the community, especially to let kids have experiences that help show it’s not scary to see a doctor. The teachers agree.
“It’s a way for us to give the kids a special experience while learning about the folks that help our community,” CNSW director MaryAnn Putnam said.
The kids each received a bag filled with items at each station–a coloring book and crayons, a “Future Doctor” hat, hand sanitizer, band aids and, cleverly, Teddy Graham snacks. At the end of the tour, the children said their favorite part of the visit was the x-ray with Teddy, and getting stickers. The CNSW students made and left behind a huge “Thank You” card shaped like a heart, signed with all their names; it’s now hanging in AFC’s waiting room.
Nazarian says the center is always willing to hold similar events for other groups. Interested organizations can contact her by calling 203.845.9100.