As parents, it can be difficult to be told your child is in need of an operation. Surgery, big or small, can weigh heavily on a parent’s mind.
It can be hard to keep the what-ifs at bay:
What if it hurts?
What if they’re scared?
What if I can’t be there for them when they feel alone?
Finding trusted, qualified care can be stressful for a needed procedure. As parents, we need to know our children will (literally) be in good hands.
Thankfully, the clinicians at MUSC Children’s Health created the MUSC R. Keith Summey Medical Pavilion, a world-class, pediatric-only comprehensive outpatient surgery center designed to put your mind at ease.
No Other Place Compares in the Lowcountry
The MUSC R. Keith Summey Medical Pavilion (SMP) is the only outpatient surgical facility that specifically serves patients between the age of six months to 17 years old in South Carolina. It is also the largest one of its kind in the Southeast region.
Most outpatient surgical centers serve adults and children alike, making them less specialized in working with children and their parents.
Easily accessible to I-26 and I-526 in North Charleston, SMP is a one-stop-shop, intentionally designed for the convenience of families. The first floor offers surgery, imaging, blood draw, infusion, and after-hours care (nights, weekends, holidays). The second-floor houses eight pods of differing pediatric subspecialties. There is even a pharmacy on-site, to have medication in hand before you leave so there will be no need for an extra stop on the way home. Every aspect of this facility has been intentionally designed to make visits, especially multiple subspecialist visits, a little less stressful.
Minimizing Stress of Surgery in a Unique Way
SMP is designed with children in mind.
One of the unique elements of SMP and MUSC Children’s Health is their Child Life Specialists. These individuals have specialized training to support and promote the developmental progress and emotional well-being of children as it pertains to illness and medical procedures. These essential team members help make something like surgery easier on the child, as well as parents. Any child having a surgical procedure will arrive to
their room set up with age-appropriate toys to help make the waiting period before
surgery more manageable. Child Life Specialists also assist in providing resources to help your child feel empowered, mentally prepared, and understand in a developmentally
appropriate way what is about to occur in their surgery.
“Child life specialists are available to every patient and it starts even before the patient arrives; so when the child gets there, their room area is set up with lots of toys or arts and crafts, things that are age appropriate for the child. Oftentimes for children, the waiting period pre-surgery can be one of the most stressful periods about the whole experience, so having those distractions there to occupy them is very helpful.” Dr. David R. White, MUSC Children’s Health, Surgeon-in-Chief
Excellence in Child-Friendly Medicine
When possible and best for the child, procedures are performed with minimally invasive techniques. This means minimizing exposure to radiation, choosing smaller incisions during surgery, use of laparoscopy, endoscopes, and other less-invasive methods to minimize the amount of tissue damage during surgery in order to minimize pain during recovery time. You can check out one of the operating rooms here.
These are some common procedures SMP offers as an outpatient surgery center:
- Ear tube placements
- Tonsillectomies
- Adenoidectomies
- Fracture Repairs
- Hernia Repairs
- Circumcisions
Parents are able to be more involved in the surgical preparation at SMP than other facilities. Traditionally, parents aren’t able to walk with their children and be with them as they go under anesthesia, or, if they are, they have to get dressed in scrubs which can be scary for children. At SMP, parents are able to be with the child as they go to sleep in the Induction Rooms which brings an enhanced peace of mind.
Children with Special Needs
If needed, the SMP care team members can take extra precautions to reduce the amount of stimulation to help lower stress before and after surgery. Experts in child health from routine surgery to complex medical conditions, SMP clinicians can provide a customized experience for your child’s specific needs.
Whether your child needs specialty care, outpatient surgery, or simply needs after-hours care, the pediatric experts at the MUSC Children’s Health R. Keith Summey Medical Pavilion will make you and your child feel more relaxed and less stressed about any visit…
A Note to Parents from Dr. David R. White, MUSC Children’s Health Surgeon-in-Chief
“MUSC Children’s Health Summey Medical Pavilion is the only place in Charleston purposely built for operative care for children. Our staff (doctors, nurses, and everyone in between) is there to take care of children, only. This separates us from other providers in the Charleston area. All of these pediatric experts are meant to reduce the amount of undesirable impact on a child while maximizing the medical outcome.”
Some additional outpatient surgical procedures that SMP offers include:
- Tympanoplasty
- Mastoidectomy
- Cochlear implantation and placement of other implantable hearing devices
- Cystoscopy and Urethroscopy
- Hypospadias repair
- Meatoplasty
- Orchiopexy
- Frenulectomy/frenuloplasty
- Sedated hearing tests
- Upper and lower GI endoscopy
- Strabismus surgery
- Excision of chalazion
- Nasolacrimal duct surgery
- Pilonidal cyst surgery
- Orthopedic implant removal
- Fracture repair
- Lymph node excision
- Preauricular cyst excision
- Hydrocele repair
- Hemangioma surgery
- Trigger finger release
- Achilles tendon lengthening
Ready to learn more about MUSC Children’s Health?
Visit the MUSC Children’s Health Website
Follow MUSC Children’s Health on Facebook
Call 843-876-0444 to schedule an appointment.
