Medical Minute: Stanford Children’s Hospital School Helps Patients Continue Learning

More than 7 million children in the U.S. miss 15 or more days of school each year, and for seriously ill kids who are hospitalized, the risk of falling behind is even greater. To address this issue, Stanford Children’s Health built a fully accredited school to ensure young patients can continue their education while receiving treatment.

For 15-year-old Reuben Roldan, attending school at the hospital has been a highlight during his yearlong health journey.

“This is my highlight of the day,” Roldan said.

The hospital's school provides a safe space where children can feel like regular students.

“The primary goal is to make them feel like they’re not a patient while in school,” said educational coordinator Kathy Ho. “What we do is normalize the experience and provide them with all those childhood experiences that any normal kid is going to have.”

The curriculum meets all educational requirements, and teachers have shown ingenuity in creating programs such as a science lab that complies with hospital safety restrictions.

“When you’re in a hospital, there’s a lot of restrictions—you can’t have open flames,” Ho said.

This challenge led to the development of “LabSCI,” a collaboration between the hospital and Stanford University students to create engaging and hands-on experiments for kids.

“There’s one that comes to mind that utilizes counting the colors in an M&M box,” Ho said. “We try to think of really fun and collaborative ways for the students to work together and be hands-on.”

Ryan Sathianthen, a medical student who volunteers with the program, says it’s his way of giving back after attending the school himself during his own cancer treatment years ago.

“It doesn’t feel like learning, but you learn a lot,” Ryan said.

Stanford Children’s Health is sharing its science curriculum with other schools across the country. To date, 30 labs have been developed, all using items easily found in a grocery store.

This year marks the school’s 100th anniversary, celebrating a century of helping young patients thrive academically despite their health challenges.