Trading Tears for Smiles
The work of the medical assistants at Maple City Health Care Center is serious. Their job includes taking blood pressure, drawing blood, conducting lab tests, and giving injections.
Araceli, Gloria, and Cilvia serve as medical assistants.
At the Center, lunch is a time to unwind, connect, and brainstorm. Araceli, Gloria, and Cilvia often talk together at lunch. Guffaws and giggles often emanate from their corner of the lunch table.
At one such lunch, the medical assistants discovered that they all wished there were some way to make a child’s visit to the Center more fun. Even children who feel well often get poked, prodded and pinched when they visit the center. Araceli, Gloria, and Cilvia wanted a way to turn tears into smiles.
The medical assistants hatched a plan. At the weekly staff meeting, they told the rest of the staff about their dream. They wanted to buy hundreds of small toys to put in a box. Each child who visited the center could choose a toy to take home.
Stacy, the pediatric nurse practitioner, liked Arely and Araceli’s idea. Stacy offered to donate money if Arely and Araceli would go shopping for the toys.
Several days later, the women invaded the staff lunch room, lugging in huge boxes full of toys. Laughing like Santa’s elves, Araceli, Gloria, and Cilvia prepared a treasure chest with a carefully selected assortment of toys.
Now, thanks to Stacy and the medical assistants, each child who bravely endures the squeeze of a blood pressure cuff or the jab of a blood test or the sting of an injection receives a toy. And since all of the Center’s children are brave, every tear is transformed into a smile.