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Lots of different people work in Children’s Theatres and they are all there to look after you. Read on to find out more…

The first people you will meet when you arrive are our friendly reception staff. They will make sure we have the right details for you and show you to one of our waiting areas. The reception staff are also the first people you would speak to if you rang us up. Their job is to organise when operations and tests happen and make sure all the nurses and doctors have the information they need every day – so they are really busy!
  
  
The next person you meet is most likely to be one of our nurses. Our nurses are involved in looking after you throughout your stay, you may have met a nurse if you came to a pre-op assessment appointment. The nurses help you to get ready for your operation by checking your weight, heart rate and temperature and sometimes giving you some medicine. Our nurses also work in the Operating Theatres – helping the surgeons and anaesthetists. There will be a nurse looking after you when you wake up in Recovery – they will make sure you feel comfortable after your operation or test.
 
 

Before an operation or test you will also meet your anaesthetist. They are specially trained doctors who look after you while you are having an operation or test. They will give you the medicine that makes you go to sleep and will stay with you all the time that you are asleep. Anaesthetists also make sure that you feel comfortable when you wake up.
 

Operating department practitioners (ODPs) work in the Operating Theatres to help anaesthetists and surgeons to look after people having operations. There will always be an ODP helping your anaesthetist when you go to sleep. They are experts at looking after the machines that help look after you while you are asleep – like monitors.
 
 

Surgeons are doctors who are specially trained to perform operations. Before your operation or test you will meet your surgeon and can ask them any questions you might have.
  

Play specialists are really good at explaining what is going to happen in hospital and finding fun things to do while you are in hospital. You might meet a Play Specialist at pre-operative assessment when they will explain all about going to sleep.

If you have had an operation on your bones or muscles you might meet a physiotherapist. They are experts at looking after how your bones, muscles and joints work. If you need crutches to help you to walk then a physiotherapist will show you how to use them.

If your doctors need some special pictures of your body to help them to look after you then you might meet a radiographer. They are trained to take amazing pictures of your “inside” with X-ray machines, CT and MRI scanners. Having a special picture taken like this is not sore – and the CT scanner even looks like a giant doughnut!