The Hospital for Sick Children

Ben was born at 24 weeks and spent the first six months of his life in neonatal intensive care units (NICU). Now 11 years old, he and his family still have a strong and lasting connection with SickKids and the staff who helped them through their most difficult days.      According to Ben's mom, Jessica, the family and wellness supports offered in the NICU – from a scrapbooking club to chats with Rita Visconti, the NICU’s former parent liaison – played a "key part" in keeping the family afloat during those first several months in hospital.     As Ben grew up and returned to SickKids for check-ups and appointments, he and Jessica always made an effort to visit Rita, who now works in another role supporting families and staff. They also attend the NICU Family Barbecue every September – it's an opportunity to reconnect with staff, families and for Ben to learn more about his "special story."    Learn more about Ben's special story and the beautiful connections that are born in the SickKids NICU ➡ https://bit.ly/3NKaPoc

Did you know that in an adult’s brain, the language centre is located in the left hemisphere, while a child’s brain uses both hemispheres? Dr. Darren Kadis explains why this “paediatric advantage” means that children often recover more easily from brain injuries and how his #SKResearch mapping the developing brain might improve outcomes for children with treatment-resistant epilepsy. Read more in this Q&A ➡️ https://bit.ly/3uQGoGO

Congratulations to SickKids' Ellis and Mital Labs on being recognized for their commitment to sustainable science!♻   Research labs are extremely resource intensive – they consume five to 10 times more energy than typical office buildings. With this in mind, the Ellis and Mital Labs decided to do their part and take significant steps to reduce their environmental footprints, by 👇 ➡ Adjusting ultra-low temperature freezers by 10 C, which reduces energy consumption by up to 40 per cent and prolongs the life of specialty freezers – all without compromising sample integrity. ➡ Recycling whenever possible and responsibly separating chemical and hazardous waste streams. ➡ Sharing lab equipment to reduce unnecessary purchases, energy consumption and waste. ➡ Turning off equipment when not in use and keeping fume hood sashes closed. ➡ Using energy and water efficient equipment, like waterless vacuums.   These changes earned the teams a My Green Lab Certification – considered the gold standard for laboratory sustainability best practices around the world. Kudos!  

For Occupational Therapy Month – and every day – we're celebrating SickKids' dedicated Occupational Therapists (OTs), who are a vital part of the health-care team! OTs assist patients and families in engaging in meaningful activities related to self-care, school, play and leisure – activities that are crucial to their daily lives. At SickKids, OTs provide a broad range of services, including assessment and intervention in areas like oral feeding, neurodevelopment, cognition, mental health, upper extremity and fine motor function, hand therapy and splinting, supportive seating, health education and promotion and discharge planning. Happy OT Month!

Are you a current or upcoming Medical Laboratory Technologist (MLT) interested in paediatric healthcare? Whether you're a seasoned MLT or just beginning your career, learn about working at SickKids in this upcoming information session. During the session, you'll:   ✅Learn about the unique and vital role of MLTs in paediatric healthcare ✅ Discover the cutting-edge technologies and research conducted at SickKids  ✅ Hear from experienced MLTs ✅ Explore career opportunities and growth prospects at SickKids Register for the virtual session here ➡  https://lnkd.in/gZ-jrBNS 📅 November 6th, 2024  🕒 3:30 PM – 5:00 PM 📍 Zoom

On Brain Tumour Awareness Week, meet the team driving the largest childhood cancer clinical trials group in Canada – our Clinical Research Associates! This team of 32 works closely with clinical teams, patients and families to coordinate more than 150 clinical trials currently running at SickKids, with participants from across the country. Read more ➡️https://bit.ly/4hyZ95B

Today, SickKids staff came together to celebrate Diwali! From sari demonstrations to dance performances, it was a wonderful way to mark the Festival of Lights.    Diwali is a fitting reminder of light triumphing over darkness, hope over despair and knowledge over ignorance — values that resonate deeply with the work done at SickKids every day. Through compassionate care and innovative treatments, SickKids strives to bring light and hope to patients and families.    Thank you to the Diwali Committee, Spiritual and Religious Care Department and Child Life for making today’s celebration possible. 

The first clinical trial to investigate treatment for childhood glioblastoma without radiation and chemotherapy has opened at SickKids.    Led by Dr. Nivav Thacker at CHEO Research Institute and Dr. Uri Tabori at #SKResearch, the trial will investigate the use of immunotherapy for patients with a subset of glioblastomas - the most common and aggressive type of brain cancer.    Over the course of the clinical trial, the study team will monitor the patients’ response to the immunotherapy in hopes that their findings will help spare children some of the potential side effects associated with radiation therapy. More study sites will also open in India, Jordan and Australia in the months to come.     Read ➡️ https://lnkd.in/g2qtCJD8

Carly Knight and Nicole Johnston are both registered respiratory therapists (RTs) at SickKids. They're also trained Safety Champions, which means they go above and beyond their roles as RTs to promote and ensure safety protocols, policies and procedures to prevent patient harm.   As part of their Safety Champion duties, Nicole and Carly have worked closely with Quality and Safety teams in the Intensive Care Unit to reduce unplanned extubation (UE) – when an endotracheal tube is removed prematurely by a patient or during care. This can lead to serious respiratory or cardiovascular complications, potentially leading to a longer stay in hospital.   To reduce UEs, Carly, Nicole and teams have conducted safety reports around UEs and brought feedback to bedside staff, as well as led rounds focused on the various risks to reinforce safe bedside practice. These efforts have reduced UEs across SickKids, minimizing the potential for patient harm. This success has led to recognition from Children's Hospitals' Solutions for Patient Safety (SPS), a network of 140+ paediatric hospitals across North America who share safety successes and failures in an attempt to eliminate patient harm across all children's hospitals. Congratulations to Carly, Nicole and team on this success and wishing all respiratory therapists across SickKids a Happy RT Week! Thank you for your continued dedication to patient safety.

When children experience acute neuroinflammatory events, like multiple sclerosis (MS) or autoimmune encephalitis (AE), they are likely to experience severe neurological disability, seizures and ICU stays acutely and long term problems such as weakness, learning difficulties and depression. To help understand why these poor outcomes occur and how treatments many improve these outcomes, Dr. Anne Yeh leads the Canadian Pediatric Neuroinflammatory Disorders Registry, a national registry that collects clinical, biological and imaging data to help inform precision therapies for neuroinflammatory conditions. Today, Canada's Drug Agency announced almost $200,000 to enhance and expand this important initiative. Congratulations to the entire team at SickKids and across Canada!