She 'unscares' kids before surgery

              Time was when a youngster fac­ing surgery, was almost scared out of his wits.
Dr. Rowena Spencer, only wom­an pediatric surgeon in Louisiana, said "they used to take a child tc the operating room, hold him down bodily, then force a mask over his face."
"Naturally the child screamed/1 added Dr. Spencer, who is assist­ant professor of surgery at the Louisiana State university medical school. "He thought he was being smothered to death."
Dr. Spencer said the terror be­gan the minute the child was rolled into the operating room.
"He would look around him and see all of these people in white coats and white caps, with white masks over their faces. To him it looked like something from outer space, like something out of Mars. Naturally he was terrified."
As a result of this fright, the child often developed personality difficulties, Dr. Spencer added.
"He began to suffer from night­mares," she explains, "or he be­gan reverting to infantile behavior even though he had been properly trained."
Dr. Spencer said today things are different. She said about an hour before surgery the child is given sedation and a tranquilizer.
"This makes him very sleepy," she explained, "so instead of be­ing frightened he is most co-op­erative."
MAKE FRIENDS
Dr. Spencer, who is one of the few women surgeons in Louisiana, said "as far as possible we ex­plain to the child what is in store Eor him."
"We reassure him," she added. "We try tp make friends with him. If a child is scared of my stethoscope I let him handle it, let him try it out on his mother so le can see for himself that it is not dangerous."
The surgeon said she is not! above bribing a youthful patient j ivith a nickel or a piece of candy.
"When I make my rounds at the lospital I always carry some chocolate kisses in my pocket. Hiis morning one resident sur­geon who was getting ready to op­erate said, 'Well this one wasj :heap — it only cost me a dime.1 Fhe one last week cost me 29 :enis.' "
Dr. Spencer said a lot depends )n the attitude of the child's mother
"Some mothers have a way of threatening their child with the doctor, of making the doctor a ix)geyman, a sort of instrument of terror," she added.
"They'll say to a child, 'If you don't be good I'll bring you to the doctor for a shot.' So when fin­ally she does bring him, the child is terrified."
The surgeon said that whenever possible mother is encouraged to remain with the child before and after surgery.
NOT   TINY  ADULTS
*'A strange hospital invariably disturbs him," she explained, "Children are like little chickens. They like to know their way around. In a strange environment It's important to have Mom on hand. A little fellow can stand al­most anything when Mom is there to protect him. It's a much less emotional shock."
Dr. Spencer said she believes it is important to treat the child as a whole.
"Sometimes when I'm discuss­ing medical problems with my medical   students,"   she   added.
"one of them will become con-j fused and ask me, ^Does this hap­pen to people, too?' Well, that set me to thinking. And I real­ized babies are not people. By this I mean babies are not small idults. And they cannot be treat­ed as such."
Dr. Spencer said an outstand­ing example of this is the cough reflex.
"Newborn babies," she ex-'; plained, "have very little cough reflex. Although they tolerate surgery well their inability to cough up mucus makes them sasy prey for pneumonia and therefore a bad surgical risk."
Dr. Spencer said "to overcome this lack, we slip a little tube iown through the baby's nose."
"With this little tube," she ex­plained, "we can suck out the secretions. This not only keeps the mucus from piling up, it also stimulates coughing."
The pediatric surgeon said the kidneys of babies are not well developed like those of adults. She said they don't   work   like
a child drinks much more fluid in proportion to his size and weight than an adult.
SURGERY DIFFICULT
"From this you can see that you can't treat a baby like a small adult," she added. "If you do, you'll run into trouble. Babies are' not small adults/'
Dr. Spencer said baby diseases are entirely different from adult diseases.
"Take atresia, a disease in which small pieces of the intes­tines are completely pinched off. Unless something is done to coun­teract this, the baby dies. You never find this disease in adults."
The surgeon said the twisted bowel, which causes obstruction in the newborn, is another surgi­cal problem.
"It is very difficult to operate on a newborn. The baby itself is so tiny. And the area in which we have to work is small in pro­portion. For instance, the intes­tines nf a newborn are onlv about PHOTO: CLYDE FREEMAN'S HOWLS END WHEN HE  LEARNS ABOUT STETHOSCOPE listens to heart of mother, Mrs. Lavon Freeman, while Dr. Rowen Spencer looks on reassuringly