Left to right:
Amari Jones, 4, with his bubble wand
Child Life Specialist Lauren Swope and Amari Jones
Bonnie Hagerman, founder of CareWare Volunteers, Inc.  

Four-year-old Amari Jones is preparing for surgery. In Hopkins Children’s preoperative suite, he places a pint-size mask on a doll and through a bubble wand blows into it, imitating the flow of anesthesia gas. He wraps a blood pressure cuff around its arm and applies a stethoscope to its midsection. “Sounds good,” he says, listening.   

Guiding Amari in this role play is Child Life Specialist Lauren Swope. “The dolls are essential in my work with children,” she says. “They help me build rapport and assess their understanding and emotional responses to their healthcare experiences. The dolls become their buddies, and can go into surgery with them.”   

Child Life specialists use the blank cloth dolls throughout Hopkins Children’s as tools in medical play and psychological preparation. Patients can draw faces, hair or even stitches on their dolls, and accessorize them with hospital gowns, medical wrist bands, bandages and other medical supplies.

In the shape of inflated gingerbread cookies, the dolls are made by individuals and volunteer organizations across America, working from a sewing pattern provided by Child Life.

“Hopkins asks for them in various skin tones – olive, tan or off-white, for example, but without any other features, so children can personalize theirs,” says Bonnie Hagerman, founder of Care Ware Volunteers, Inc. in Maryland, a doll supplier.

“When I heard how they were used, more than 15 years ago now, I thought ‘what a wonderful and clever idea’,” says Hagerman, who has been making dolls and doll-clothes for Hopkins ever since.

In Washington State, Providing Useful Group Service (P.U.G.S.) volunteers use scrap fabric to make their own line. “Our dolls’ hospital gowns tie in the back and some of them have little pockets,” says P.U.G.S. founder Kathleen Zucati, “just like the real thing.”   

Butterflies, blue and white stripes, polka dots and jungle prints grace P.U.G.S. recent couture line.

Patients can become very attached to their dolls. “One child creates a new one every year she comes in for scheduled surgery,” says Swope. “She now has a collection. Each has meaning for her.”   

Adolescents like to use them for autographs, she adds: “Nurses, doctors and other patients will sign them, often on the day the patient is discharged.”

Jessica Johnson contributed to this story