Wholesome doctor goes the extra mile to make kids surgeries less terrifying (24 Photos)

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Going through any kind of surgery can be a stressful event, especially for kids who don’t fully understand what’s happening. That’s why it’s worth acknowledging people like Director of Pediatric Surgery at Akron Children’s Hospital Dr. Robert Perry who go the extra mile to alleviate some of the fear.

After Dr. Parry puts down the scalpel, he takes out his colored markers and gets to work drawing amusing and colorful cartoons on each child’s post-op dressings to hide the scars.

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Parry has been working at the hospital since 2011 and has performed over 10,000 surgeries during his career, which is impressive on its own, but it’s the care and sympathy he shows after the surgery that parents like Christina Potts Whipkey remembered the most…

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“There is an incredible amount of stress any time a child is ill. When there is a surgical schedule, parents work hard to hide their fear of the procedure, the financial stress of the situation, and their terror of something going wrong.”
-C. Whipkey

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“The doctor told Kennedy (Whipkey’s 9-year-old daughter) and her siblings she would have a lovely butterfly after she was done. When Kennedy came out, everyone was excited to see what the doctor meant. Kennedy was so proud of the pretty bandage and not concerned about any scars.”
-C. Whipkey

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When asked about why he spends so much extra time creating the illustrations, Perry replied with a heartwarming response…

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“It’s been a pretty special thing for everyone. It’s fun for me to do, the parents and the children really enjoy it and even the whole medical staff likes to get in on it. Whenever one of my kids arrive in the recovery room, the nurses all like to take a look to see what dressing the child got. I think it just makes everyone, myself included, feel good.”
-Dr. Parry

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After his artwork was shared by the hospital earlier this month, many parents of Dr. Parry’s former patients joined in to express how much of a difference his Random Act of Kindness made.

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