Dr. Sanderson, I Presume

Everyone knows one of the best parts about being  a parent is that all the fun things you used to do as a kid get to be relived, and all the holidays that somehow became less important when you hit the teen years, have more vibrancy.  We are coming to the end of the school year, and for Liam and Ian, that means all the fun activities like field trips, career day and field day are here. 

I recently volunteered to represent radiology and instruct the kids what it means to choose this career path at CRDAMC’s adopted school, Saegert Elementary. I had such a good time with it, I decided it would be even better to go to Ian’s career day.  In the flyer from Ian’s school, Clearcreek Elementary, it was encouraged that parents show up and the kids dress the part of their chosen profession. When Lisa asked Ian what he wanted to do, he said without hesitation he wanted to be a doctor. (The back story to this is that Ian had a classmate that broke his arm this school year and had a cast. He has since repeated that he wanted to be a doctor when he grows up so he “could help hurt people.” Lisa and I were encouraging despite our own professional biases toward doctors; nursing and radiology/pharmacy know how difficult they can be.)

So, Lisa took an old pair of scrubs and magically shrunk it down to fit him. She then took one of my old white shirts and made a lab coat out of it. Here is Ian with his hair all done the way he likes it ready for career day.

This next one made us laugh. We called it his "Super Doctor" pose-- out to save the world and cure patients.

Finding it still needed something more, she stitched his name in blue on his pocket. He really liked that and kept pointing it out and reading "Look! Doctor Ian Sanderson!"

Now the interesting thing about career day here is that it is sponsored by various military units and the kids are taught about the various professions of the soldiers that sponsor them. So since Saegert was sponsored by CRDAMC, we taught the kids what it meant to work in a lab, x-ray, pharmacy, etc. Since Ian’s school is sponsored by a cav unit, all the professions they went over had to do with vehicles.  Race car driver was one, bus driver was another and of course a Bradley and Humvee were the main attractions. (They even let the kids sit in the turrets.)

After the presentations, Ian had P.E. which he enjoyed doing. It was funny watching him do a sort of callisthenic exercise in their open air gym. Here he is doing some twists:

 Afterward, they lined up to go inside for lunch. He was pretty happy having Lisa and I there and was sad to see us go. I reassured him that we would be back tomorrow with him for field day.

The whole experience was great fun, the best part being able to spend some time with Ian. I was even more excited for field day!