On Saturday, April 25, patients at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital traded their hospital rooms for a dance floor with music, lights and a night of celebration during their very own prom. BayCare Kids and St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital are Tampa Bay’s largest provider of pediatric health care, and believe healing happens not only through medicine, but through moments that nurture joy, normalcy and connection.
Held in the hospital’s Medical Arts Building auditorium, this year’s “Dream Big”-themed event gave pediatric patients the opportunity to experience one of childhood’s most meaningful milestones — something St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital and BayCare Kids strives to protect, even in the face of illness. The annual dance is hosted by the hospital’s Child Life team, who organizes the event for patients who are unable to attend their own prom or who, due to chronic or life-threatening conditions, may never get the opportunity.
For Leslie Dempsey, Child Life supervisor at St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital, that sense of normalcy is at the heart of why the event matters.
“For children and teens who are hospitalized, life can quickly become defined by diagnoses, treatments and routines that set them apart from their peers,” Dempsey said. “Prom gives hospitalized kids the chance to step out of the identity of ‘patient’ and experience a sense of normalcy in a place that often feels anything but normal. It allows them to reclaim a piece of their childhood or adolescence that illness or injury has interrupted.”
