The Bag That Carried More Than Toys

I’d argue that the most overlooked condition in a hospital cannot be found on a chart. It cannot be detected through a scan, measured by a monitor, or treated with a prescription. Among the beeping monitors and quiet hallways, there is a person navigating unfamiliar rooms and sitting at the center of difficult conversations. In the midst of treating an illness, it can become easy to forget the person experiencing it.

There is a particular kind of laughter that sounds different in a hospital. Emotional baggage is dropped as smiles and comfort begin to rise. It seems almost out of place, yet when a child laughs, even for a moment, the hospital room transforms from a place of illness into a second home. We have largely advanced in identifying what is happening within the body, but what happens when we overlook what a patient needs emotionally? A diagnosis may explain what is wrong, but it does not tell us who is sitting in the hospital bed.

I began thinking about this differently during my time volunteering at Atrium Health alongside Child Life Specialists. I expected my role to involve assisting children within the hospital by taking them to the restroom, bringing them their meal carts, or simply checking in every now and then. However, when I was handed a strawberry tote bag filled with books and toys, all of my assumptions were proven wrong. I didn't think I would learn the value that a simple game of UNO or coloring challenges could have on a patient's time in the hospital. Moments when I sat with children to talk about the prizes they won at last night's bingo or what they were most excited about when starting a new grade were where my perception of a hospital changed. Somewhere between each bedside kneel and unboxing of toys, I discovered a medicine that should be prescribed to all. If connection can influence the way a patient experiences one of the most vulnerable periods of their life, why isn't it discussed with the same urgency as other aspects of care?

Hospitalization is the act of admitting a person into a hospital for medical treatment or observation. Roughly 100,000 people in the United States are admitted to a hospital daily, making the consequences of hospitalization far less visible. With the busy rush of admitted patients needing physical care as soon as possible, the emotional care that should be provided throughout the entire process can slowly diminish as well. Forming a connection with a patient is currently viewed as an extra bonus in a hectic environment; however, a simple shared laugh can be an important part of quality care.

In the article “The Effect of Hospitalization on Patients' Emotional and Psychological Well-Being Among Adult Patients,” an integrative review synthesized 18 studies that found hospitalization can negatively affect patients' ability to cope and adjust while exacerbating feelings of anxiety and depression. While a patient's physical condition may be continuously monitored, their emotional well-being can be much harder to recognize. A patient can have improving vital signs and still feel frightened, isolated, or disconnected.

Additionally, the article “The Value of Connecting with the Patient” explores specific ways people can showcase a more empathetic side when talking with a patient. Practices such as referring to the patient by their preferred name, sitting beside a patient to give them your full attention, perspective-taking (putting yourself in their shoes), and viewing the patient as a person, not a case, are all ways that nurses, doctors, volunteers, and caregivers can provide a feeling to their patients that is not found through a labeled bottle.

From each room that I visited in the hospital, I walked in without a plan. I would sanitize my hands, knock on the door three times, offer a smile, and see where the conversation would go. I didn't place pressure on myself, the patient, or their family for everything to go a certain way. I knew that some kids would be scared to open up and simply needed someone new to sit beside their bed without flooding their minds with questions.

Each child was staring at the same four walls for an unbelievable amount of time. Doctors and nurses would come in and out of their rooms for constant checkups and questions. So, for me to offer a moment where they felt seen or heard through card games and building blocks, and to make the hospital not seem like the most important thing in the room, was something more meaningful than I could ever imagine.

One morning, I met a young patient who rarely left his mother's side. In an unfamiliar hospital environment surrounded by unfamiliar faces, his mother was his source of comfort, and he was reluctant to let her out of his sight. Rather than pulling his attention away from her, I met him where he was. I sat beside him by the bay window with his collection of toy cars and engaged in a topic that he loved.

We began playing with his cars, passing them back and forth, lifting them up and zooming around the room. His hospital room was transformed into a personal racetrack where he could simply play. What began as a simple game gave his mother an opportunity to step away and breathe, while giving him the confidence to interact with me and eventually with members of his healthcare team.

What struck me wasn't that I had solved anything. I hadn't changed the child's diagnosis or shortened his hospital stay. I had simply given him a point of familiarity in an unfamiliar place. Yet that small connection seemed to make the hospital feel a little less foreign.

The strawberry tote bag filled with endless conversations and forms of connection makes me reconsider what we mean when we say that someone is “receiving care.” Care can mean medication, treatment, and monitoring, but it can also mean creating enough trust for a frightened child to let someone new into their world. We often measure healthcare through numbers: recovery times, treatment outcomes, survival rates, and diagnoses. But how do we measure the moment a frightened child finally smiles? How do we quantify the trust built between a patient and the person caring for them?

Perhaps the most overlooked condition in healthcare is not one that needs to be diagnosed, but one that needs to be noticed. Connection cannot be measured by a monitor or recorded in a patient's chart, yet its absence can make an unfamiliar hospital feel even more isolating.

My time at Atrium taught me that care does not always arrive in a prescription bottle or through a medical procedure. Sometimes, it arrives in the form of a strawberry tote bag filled with toys, a conversation about school, a game of UNO, or a child finally feeling comfortable enough to let someone new into their world. These moments may not change a diagnosis, but they can change the experience of living through one.

We should start to ask quieter questions: Did this patient feel seen? Because before there is a diagnosis, there is a person sitting in their bed, and helping that person feel less alone is part of the care they need most.

Work Cited

“The Effect of Hospitalization on Patients' Emotional and Psychological Well-Being Among Adult Patients.” PubMed, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34544571/.

McKinney, Chelsea. “The Value of Connecting With the Patient.” Qualtrics, https://www.qualtrics.com/articles/customer-experience/connecting-with-the-patient.