Beacon Children’s Hospital receives creative, inspiring gift from Penn High School senior

Penn High School Engineering Design teacher Tara Pieters (left) and Beacon Child Life Specialist Rileigh Zickafoose.

Rileigh Zickafoose found herself in a pickle. While taking inventory of the teaching tools she has available to help young patients understand the care they are receiving, the new Child Life Specialist realized she didn’t have anything to explain what it’s like to get an MRI.

While MRIs are painless imaging exams, they can be very distressing, especially for young children. It can be a tight space and the machine makes loud and strange noises. Add to the mix that the average MRI can take 30 to 60 minutes.

The last thing she ever wants is for kids to be scared.

“Surprises can be very traumatic for kids,” Zickafoose said. “We like to make sure they go in with enough knowledge and confidence to take some of the scariness away.”

A big part of Zickafoose’s job at Beacon Children’s Hospital is building rapport and trust with children so she can serve as a guide for each child’s medical journey. She uses popular toys and medical models to teach kids about what to expect and to help alleviate stress they may be feeling. She often helps patients during procedures by offering words of distraction, encouragement or comfort.

“Helping children be a part of their own medical decisions is critical to their care,” Zickafoose said. “Being able to play with imitations of medical equipment and ask questions empowers them in such a way that it makes their situation a little less scary and a little more manageable.”

Making the connection

A moveable table allows patients to slide their favorite toy into and out of the model MRI machine similar to the real-life experience.

Zickafoose had a vision in her head of what she needed: a small-scale model MRI machine with moveable parts that could fit a Barbie®-sized toy. She reached out to friends through social media and texts to see if anyone had access to a 3D printer. A friend responded and said she had just started a new job teaching at Penn High School and knew a colleague who could help.

The next day, her friend put Zickafoose in touch with Engineering Design teacher Tara Pieters. She explained her vision and e-mailed photos of an MRI machine. Pieters chose Hadley Jessop to head the project, a Penn senior who plans on studying engineering in college and who has experience with complex designs.

Jessop spent over three hours designing the scaled model MRI with computer software. He even added a sliding table similar to a real MRI machine, just the right size for small toys.

The Dremel® DigiLab printer took seven days to replicate the model, making Zickafoose’s wish into a tangible reality.

“I think it’s really cool to see my idea come to fruition,” Zickafoose said. “What’s even cooler is that I can tell patients that a student at Penn High School made this to help other kids. That’s what community is all about.”

Paying it forward

The miniature MRI is now in the hands of the Child Life Specialists, ready to help ease the minds of some of our most vulnerable patients and their parents through play.

Penn High School senior Hadley Jessop.

For Jessop, this project has special meaning.

“Part of becoming an engineer is to innovate in order to help people, and this is the first project I completed that will help somebody,” he said. “It’s a good feeling knowing I’m on the path I want to be on and absolutely incredible that something I created is going to help kids in my community.”