Picture yourself as a focused, diligent nursing student. You’re preparing for a career in the ER or maybe in the medical-surgical unit. You’re sitting down in front of a professor for the first time to discuss your clinical assignment. You’re intense, serious, and ready to go. Then, the professor brings out a teddy bear.

A teddy bear?

“At first, there was some apprehension,” says Amy Campbell, RN, BSN, with a contagious southern chuckle. “But then they realized they were part of something big. Sometimes behind-the-scenes people are really important. You don’t have to code someone to make a difference in their lives.”

With the help of some preschoolers and some furry, little friends, that concept is just one of many that Campbell is teaching her nursing students at Pitt Community College in Greenville, N.C. Campbell got the idea for the Healthy Teddy Project from a story she read about teddy bear hospitals. “The North Carolina Board of Nursing is always looking for more creative ways to do clinicals,” Campbell says. “We’ve been trying to think of something different.”

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