Less stressful pediatric surgery

Laura and Douglas Mills sit in a recovery room at Children’s National Medical Center, quietly talking as their 9-month-old son, Jacob, sleeps.

Mrs. Mills says she had a hard time letting her son go into surgery, but this time, she and her husband were reunited with Jacob more quickly than during their last two trips to the pediatric hospital, located in Northwest.

Jacob, who was born with a cleft lip and palate, had lip adhesion surgery when he was 3 months old to stretch the muscles of his lip and had lip closure surgery when he was 5 months old. The Millses, who live in Mechanicsville, Md., took Jacob back to Children’s Hospital, as it is commonly known, last week for cleft palate closure surgery, planning to stay with him during his two nights of recovery.

“We walked into a whole new process,” Mr. Mills says. “We used to go to three to four rooms before the surgery. Now, it’s in one area. It streamlined the process a lot.”

The “new process” began Jan. 18 with the opening of the Joseph E. Robert Jr. Surgery Preparation and Recovery Center, an updated facility named after Mr. Robert, owner of the J.E. Robert Cos. real estate investment firm in McLean. He contributed $25 million to the hospital’s Center for Surgical Care.

The Center for Surgical Care, which conducts 10,000 operations a year, is located in the new east wing addition, scheduled for completion in 2007. The addition will house primary care clinics, emergency services and inpatient care.

“What we had before was a traditional setup of different rooms. Children and families moved from one room to the next as they moved through the system,” says Dr. Kurt Newman, chief of surgery and executive director of the Center for Surgical Care.

The building housing Children’s Hospital, which has been located in the District for the past 130 years, was built in the 1970s. Then, most surgeries were inpatient experiences with children admitted the night before surgery and staying a few days afterward, Dr. Newman says.

“What’s happened in the last 30 years, children come in the same day of surgery. There is a whole process of getting families and children ready for surgery that has evolved from an inpatient experience to most surgeries being an outpatient experience,” Dr. Newman says. “What this facility does is reflect that trend, so we are much more able to take care of patients and families the same day of surgery.”

Located on the second floor of the new five-story wing, the 12,800-square-foot Surgery Preparation and Recovery Center allows families to be with their children during the anesthesia induction process before surgery and again afterward in the recovery area.

“We had the good fortune to design something specifically for kids,” says Beryl Muniz, a registered nurse and director of perioperative services. “We wanted to reunite families quickly.”

In the past, parents would have to wait until their children emerged from the acute recovery room before reuniting with them in another recovery room.

“Unfortunately, with children, if they don’t see their mom and dad, they’re frightened,” Mrs. Muniz says. “We try to have parents with them as soon as possible so they recover better.”

The surgical process is initiated at the registration area, which, like the rest of the center, has a nautical theme. Fish are pictured swimming along a bright blue wall, and the vinyl floor looks like waves.

“The idea is to create a soothing and calming environment that also is interesting for children,” Dr. Newman says. “I love the idea that [the center] is big and spacious, but there are spaces for intimacy and privacy for patients and families and where nurses can focus on individual patients. … It’s not just a space where you’re going to be processed in, where a number is put on you for surgery.”

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