How Shriners Children’s Supports the Family Unit While Treating the Patient

Once upon a time in medicine, a hospital would treat a child for a condition almost in a vacuum, zeroing in on the patient’s physical ailment without much thought of their other needs. Now, thanks to a better understanding of the emotional and mental toll that illness takes on a child, hospitals like Shriners Children’s tend to the child’s psychological well-being as a close second to their physical well-being.

And some organizations take that comprehensive care even further by supporting the psychological needs of the patient’s family, too, ensuring that parents, siblings and caregivers have professional help for their fears and anxieties.

Here, once again, the Shriners Children’s healthcare system goes the extra mile. It not only offers psychological support to the family unit, but also aids with everyday practicalities that may often be overlooked by other hospitals but are keenly felt by families with hospitalized children, including financial, transportation, schooling and housing considerations.

We spoke with two longtime members of the Shriners Children’s staff, a clinical psychologist and a care manager, to better understand the many ways that the system cares for the entire family unit while treating the patient – and why that’s so important.

Psychological Care

For the past 25 years, clinical psychologist Sylvia Garma, Ph.D., has provided consultation services at Shriners Children’s Northern California, focusing on burn care over the past five years. She notes that her primary concern is and always will be the patient, which is why caring for the family is key, too. “It is important to keep in mind that the goal is to return the patient to the family, and, therefore, by supporting family well-being, we are supporting the patient,” she said.

Parents are often traumatized by the events leading to the hospital admission and by the care their child will require. “For some, traumatization can get in the way of their ability to be emotionally present for the child,” Dr. Garma said. Dealing with this trauma in an unfamiliar environment – the hospital – which may be far from home and typical support systems, adds to the challenge.

She works with them to tackle feelings of guilt and inadequacy that may arise when their child is hurt or ill. “These feelings are independent from the events that led to the injury [or condition] and stem from a generally unrealistic feeling of having failed to protect their child,” Dr. Garma said. “They struggle with feelings of inadequacy related to not being able to provide what the child needs at the time or not being able to stop the pain or resolve the anxiety or sadness that the child may be experiencing. Children can react with anger when injured or suffering. And the anger is often directed at the parent, a safe figure in their lives.”

Other common emotions faced by parents and caregivers in such situations include fear of losing the child, anguish of watching their child in pain, concern of being judged by others and anxiety about the child’s future well-being.

“They may have financial concerns related to time away from work or from losing employment after taking extended time away to be in the hospital,” she said. “In many cases, parents worry about siblings left in the home who are not receiving the attention they need.” If siblings are present at the hospital, psychological care is offered to them as well.