Summer Fun at The Children’s Inn at NIH

From Camp INNcredible to Sibling Day, and everything in between, Children’s Inn residents have been busy with many fun and therapeutic programs this summer. Drawing “blood” from a fake arm, simulating brain surgery with a 3D monitor, using a surgical stapler, and viewing X-rays of everything from a human face to a fish were just some of the activities during the 7th Annual NIH Sibling Day.

The event provides brothers and sisters of pediatric patients a behind-the-scenes look at medical research and offers an opportunity to give them special recognition for the important role they play as part of the healthcare team. After spending the morning at the NIH Clinical Center, the 12 siblings, ranging in age from 7-15, returned to The Children’s Inn for therapeutic games, art and music activities.

“Sibling Day offers these kids recognition for their own needs, for their own worries, their own questions, their own concerns, their own hopes,” says program creator Lori Weiner, head of the Pediatric Psychosocial Support and Research Program in the Pediatric Oncology Branch at the NIH.

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