Mary Bridge Children's Hospital’s Post

Please join us in congratulating Brooke Caccamo, a neonatal intensive care unit registered nurse at MultiCare Mary Bridge Children's Hospital who was awarded a Health Care Hero award from the Puget Sound Business Journal. "Watching my patients progress from being these tiny babies at one to two pounds to growing and leaving the NICU with their families is amazing. Getting know the families is such a blessing. The parents become part of our care team as we treat their infant. It's a privilege to take care of these precious babies."

Happy retirement, Tory Green! We are grateful to have you as chair of the Mary Bridge Children’s Foundation board. Congratulations on over 30 years with the Tacoma Fire Department — your service to our community and advocacy for mental health resources for first responders is invaluable to Tacoma and beyond.

This week our patient ambassadors Jack, Tyval, Shawn and Lance came to Mary Bridge Children's to help us assemble four @LEGO MRI kits that were donated to our sedation unit. These models provide simple details about an MRI suite, including the machine, waiting room, radiologist area and more. Our Child Life team will use these to help explain to patients what will happen during an MRI scan.

Our construction crew hosted 20 high school students from Tacoma Public Schools in the Career & Technical Education program, which gives students a firsthand look at trades and worksite learning. Everyone on the tour wore hard hats and PPE, then had the opportunity to hear directly from the laborers and tradespeople who are building our new hospital campus. Thank you to Layton Construction, Abbott Construction, Hermason, Aerotek, ESH Safety Management, Bigfoot, Tucker-Weitzel and all the project partners who answered questions and spent the morning with us.

At 17, Nathan Eller was a competitive athlete who dreamed of running Division I track in college. But during his junior year of high school, Nathan was diagnosed with T-cell lymphoblastic lymphoma, a rare cancer, and received treatment at MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital. The experience later inspired him to pursue a career in diagnostic ultrasound — and led him right back to the place and health system that helped him heal. “When I found out I was coming back to Tacoma for my clinical internship, I was over the moon,” Nathan says. “It was amazing to think that my experience was coming full circle.”

In partnership with U.S. Department of Agriculture Mary Bridge Children's is providing free summer lunches for children under 18, now through Aug. 30. “Many kids struggle to get their nutritional needs met in the summer months because they often lose access to free or reduced-priced meals at school,” says Erica Lewis, RD, health promotion program manager at the MultiCare Center for Health Equity & Wellness. “Mary Bridge Children’s aims to fill that nutritional gap with healthy food that kids enjoy.” For more information: https://multica.re/4etdNJP

We love when Rhubarb stops by, especially when he brings friends ⚾ Pitcher Trevor Kelly and infielder Jake Slaughter stopped by to visit with our patients in Piper's Playhouse. Thank you to the Tacoma Rainiers for always bringing plenty of fun and smiles when you visit!

Mary Bridge Children’s is proud to be part of the Children’s Hospital Association. We are proud to support their work during Family Advocacy Day as they advocate for pediatric care with lawmakers in Washington D.C. We are hopeful these initiatives will increase awareness about the rising youth mental health crisis, enhance Medicaid support, and strengthen our workforce. #FAD2024 #TeamCHA

Lindsay Finney, LICSW, a clinical social worker at MultiCare Mary Bridge Children’s, gathered her colleagues the day after the shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas to take a moment to acknowledge what happened and how they felt about it. That conversation bloomed into another about what they would do if such a mass casualty event were to happen in the Tacoma community, given they work at the region’s pediatric trauma center. Lindsay is now the manager of the Mary Bridge Children’s Child Abuse Intervention Department (CAID) as well as the Children’s Advocacy Center of Pierce County, and partners with local law enforcement to organize a firearm giveback events.