Kindergartners from all five local elementary schools attended this year’s fourth annual Teddy Bear Clinic throughout the day Friday at Los Alamos Medical Center.

“Usually a child’s first experience with a hospital is something traumatic such as their own illness or that of a grandparent or other loved one – and we wanted to make their first impression a positive one,” said founder Johanna Jiron whose husband Feliciano is CEO of the hospital.

Through several years of hosting Teddy Bear Clinics for various age groups in communities where her husband was running hospitals, Jiron discovered that kindergarten students were the most receptive age.

“I started the program in Las Vegas, N.M., in 2000 at Northeastern Medical Center,” she said. “We try the preschool age group at western Arizona Regional Medical Center in Bullhead City, Ariz. We settled on kindergartners at Mark Twain St. Joseph Medical Center in San Andreas, Calif.”

Jiron founded the Teddy Bear Clinic at LAMC in 2012 and discovered that spreading the school visits by 340 kindergarteners throughout the day has worked very well. Barranca, Chamisa and Pinon students participated in the program during the morning Friday and Aspen and Mountain took the afternoon slots.

“This year we have had such great participation from Classic Air Medical giving the kids tours of their helicopter, Los Alamos Firefighters showing the kids their fire engine and ambulance and the Los Alamos Police Department’s Emergency Dispatch Center representatives who explain how everything works,” she said. “Also, the Emergency Department, Imaging, Lab, Pharmacy, Physical Therapy and the New Mexico Sinus Institute all did a great job with the kids.”

Doctors, nurses and other staff members participate in the annual Teddy Bear Clinic by interacting with the kids and having them tour various rooms at the medical center. They tour emergency services, lab, radiology, physical therapy, and physician clinics. Each department presentation is 10 minutes long.

Each student receives a backpack filled with memories from their day at the Teddy Bear Clinic.

“We always end the event with an ice cream social for the employees as a way to say thank you because we appreciate their participation so much,” Jiron said.