Intercom, September 1998
Newsletter for Employees and Friends of Raritan Bay Medical Center, Perth Amboy, NJ
Reproduced with permission

A hospital stay for any child can be frightening and unsettling. Most children don't even understand why they are there. Raritan Bay Medical Center's Pediatrics department is using a new technique to make children feel comfortable and at ease in order to help speed recovery.
The Pediatrics department recently received a male and female anatomical learning doll as a dontaion from the Perth Amboy Junior Auxiliary. These cuddly and educational dolls, better known as "Claudia's Kids," are designed to satisfy the overwhelming fascination and curiosity children have about their bodies. Anatomical information is presented in a safe, non-threatening manner that is geared to the minds of children.
The dolls are designed to appeal to both pre-school and elementary school aged children. Flaps on the tummy and back can be opened to expose dimensional, realistic looking organs and skeletal structures. Each doll comes with a backpack filled with colorful teaching templates, which help tell the story of what goes on inside the body. Each template can be superimposed on the doll to help find and identify an organ. Open the template and simple language describes the organ and its primary function. Dressing and undressing the dolls will even provide practice in buttoning, zipping and fastening.
"Each year the Perth Amboy Junior Auxiliary donates money to the hospital," says Donna Tuttle, director of Volunteer Services. "This year, they wanted to do something special for Pediatrics. The juniors purchased the dolls with the fundraising money they made doing facepainting at the Metuchen & St. James street fairs, selling their annual Thanksgiving Pies and participating in several other events over the year."
"Claudia's Kids" are being used in approximately 200 hospitals including internationally in Russia, Australia, Greece, Scotland and Israel. Because the dolls teach about normal anatomy and physiology, they also are being used in many schools, day care centers and homes, to help children learn about their bodies.
"These dolls are terrific, they teach children about their bodies and how their bodies function," says Johnetta Matkowsky, RN, patient care coordinator of Pediatrics. "Doctors and nurses use them as teaching aids for children and parents."

Milwaukee Jornal Sentinel, October 6, 1998
Health/Science Section
By Neil D. Rosenberg
©1997 Jounal Sentinal Inc., reproduced with permission.

Some dolls cry. Some wet. Some crawl. Some talk.
And some show off their body parts.
That one would be one of Claudia's Kids, soft-sculptured dolls that show off everything from liver to kidneys, from ovaries to testicles.
The dolls are the brain-child and creation of Claudia Grosz, a medical illustrator, whose parents, Sandy and Robert Grosz of Greendale, are marketing and selling the dolls out of their home under the name Grosz Anatomy.
Designed as an educational tool the dolls are aimed at health educators in hospitals, schools and clinics, although the Groszes also are trying to break into the day care and home school market.
Sandy Grosz said the doll is aimed at satisfying the natural curiosity of youngsters about their bodies and how they work. It also is useful to health workers to help explain medical procedures or surgery to youngsters.
The dolls, which come in anatomically correct female, male and genderless forms, have Velcro front and back panels. When opened, the panels reveal the guts, literally, of the body, and other major internal organs and blood vessels as well.
Templates, which highlight selected organs and open up book-style to a basic explanation of the organ and how it works, are included.
Carol Bell, a child life specialist at Gundersen Lutheran Hospital in La Crosse, has purchased two of the dolls -- female "Annie" and male "Tommy."
"It is really a neat way of helping a little bit more in explaining to kids where things are located in the body," said Bell, whose role is both health educator and recereational specialist.
She recently used a doll to show the location of the appendix to a youngster facing surgery to remove hers, and said the hospital uses the dolls at least once a week for surgical cases.
The hospital also uses the dolls in cases in which children receive medicine or nutrition through an intravenous line placed near the collarbone. "The doll helps them trace how the blood flows in the body."
The hospital also is beginning to use the dolls in preschool and day care situations, where children first become interested in their bodies.
Sandy Grosz said her daughter designed the doll as a final project in a medical illustration master's program at the University of Michigan in 1992.
"She loves children and liked to sew" and the doll was a natural outgrowth of that, Grosz said.

Association of Medical Illustrators Citation of Merit
Special recognition of achievement in medical illustration

Vesalius Trust Certificate of Merit
An award that recognizes creative individuals and their projects exhibiting excellence and innovation in the area of visual communication in the health sciences

Dolls have met the safety requirements of ASTM F963 and European Standard EN71