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Teddy bears, Cooper staff help prep kids for doctor visits – NJ.com
April 20, 2016 – by: Michelle Caffrey
CAMDEN — A hospital can be a scary place for a kid. But Cooper University Hospital is trying to ward off their fears through a program that uses a different kind of tool — a teddy bear.
More than 100 kindergarteners from the city’s KIPP Cooper Norcross Academy were set up with a special teddy bear and t-shirt on Tuesday morning as they participated in the hospital’s free “Teddy goes to Cooper” program.
It’s designed to help alleviate the fears the young children have of visiting the doctor or a hospital by introducing them to the equipment and procedures they’d likely see in a health care environment.
Each student was able to walk their bear through five different stations, where he was able to get not only his immunizations for school, but also his sore paw, painful ear and ripped fur fixed up by hospital staff.