Trips To the Hospital
Trips with your children to the hospital are never fun. In most cases, you and your children need to wait for hours to see a doctor. Also, when your children are hurt or injured, they will be whining and crying, which can increase your stress level greatly. When a little girl named Autumn had to go to the hospital in August 2017, she was expecting a difficult day. Boy, was she wrong.
Wolfson Children’s Hospital
The family is from Jacksonville, Florida and when Autumn complained of a sore throat, her mother knew that she needed to see a doctor. She had two other daughters, so she loaded all three children up into the car and headed toward the emergency room.
Dr. Chima Matthew
Autumn and her two sisters, Winter and Kristlynn were sitting in the room waiting for the doctor when a medic named Dr. Matthew came into the room. He saw that the family had been sitting there for a while and figured that the girls were getting bored and impatient. When he walked into the room, he realized that his suspicions were correct. The girls didn’t look happy, and Mom looked frazzled. He decided that when he got into the room that he would do something to brighten their day.
Busting a Move
When Dr. Matthew saw how bored the girls looked, he took out his phone and turned on some music. Next, she started dancing. The girls immediately got excited, and they started dancing with him. Each of the girls was showing off all of their best dance moves. While this was going on, the girls’ mom watched with a huge smile on her face. Shortly after, Mom took out her phone and started recording the whole thing. When a mom saw what this doctor was doing with her kids, she captured his actions on camera.
An Easy Time
After the dance party ended, the girls’ mother got the news that Autumn had strep throat. They were given a prescription and released. The girls’ mother was happy that what she thought would be a miserable time at the hospital turned out to be a great time for her children. She knew that she had Dr. Matthew to thank.
Posting On Social Media
The girls’ mother was so impressed by what the doctor was doing that she posted her video on social media. She wanted people to see what a great and caring doctor he was. It wasn’t long before the video went viral. It was even seen by a famous person. Talk show host and comedian Ellen DeGeneres saw the video and she commented on it. In the caption, she wrote, “Their sister was sick, so the doctor cheered them up with this dance. I love this.” The girls’ mother thought that it was incredible the Ellen DeGeneres had seen and commented on her video. Things like that don’t often happen to single mothers in Jacksonville, Florida.
The Local News
Ellen DeGeneres wasn’t the only person to be impressed by the video. When the local news, Action News Jax saw the video, they loved it. They decided to send a reporter to the hospital. They contacted the mother and asked her to bring her daughters to the hospital so that they could have a reunion on camera. They wanted to make a sequel to the first video.
On Camera
In the news report, the doctor, who seems always to be happy, is wearing his scrubs as usual and sitting in an exam room with the three girls. This time they weren’t dancing. Instead, they were singing. The doctor was doing most of the singing, and the girls were beaming with pride.
Goofing Around
The doctor was goofing around with the girls, and they thought that he was hilarious. The reporter realized right away that the first video wasn’t a one-time thing. It was clear that he was always an upbeat person with a big heart. She called him a doctor with a knack for making kids laugh. This is really important when you are working in a children’s hospital where kids always need some cheering up. He says that while treating his patients’ illnesses is his first priority, making them smile and feel comfortable is equally as important. He believes that laughter is the best medicine, so he makes sure to make his patients laugh. Fortunately, he is really good at it.
Not Every Day Is Fun
While Dr. Matthew admitted to loving his job, he told the Action News Jax reporter that not every day is this fun. He discussed having traumatic experiences of losing some young patients, but it never made him want to stop coming back to work. He told the reporter that he has gone to the funerals for the children that he has lost. Some of his coworkers told him that he gets too close to the children and he shouldn’t put his heart in it. Dr. Matthew disagrees. He says that he will walk away from medicine the day that his heart is no longer in it.
A Lucky Hospital
The thousands of people who saw the first video and the followup from the news agree that Wolfson Children’s Hospital is lucky to have a doctor on staff like Dr. Matthew. This is a doctor who puts his patients above all else. He is the perfect example of what a good doctor should be.
