Thanks to the 3rd, 4th and 5th grade students at Pine Knob Elementary, the walls of the McLaren Clarkston Emergency Center are no longer bare, but rather dressed up with color and creativity of the nearby art students.
Opened in February 2016, the 16,000-sq. ft., 20 patient room emergency facility has been motivated to get involved with the surrounding Clarkston community.
Jody Sebring-Schneider, the art teacher at Pine Knob Elementary, was excited at the opportunity to come together with a community partner and offer the project to her students.
"The students really got into it and I was very pleased at how they all responded," she said. "It was a project they really put a lot of thought into. I'm grateful for McLaren Clarkston at the opportunity this afforded."
Using three-inch paper circles, Sebring-Schneider gave the students a prompt: Without using words, how would you use colors and patterns to provoke different feelings?
"The students gathered and talked through it," she said. "I told them to try to put themselves in the mindset of someone going to the ER and how they might be feeling-anxious, worried, scared-and what might it take to put their mind at east. I was very happy with how this turned out."
The new McLaren Clarkston Emergency Center is the most recent addition to McLaren's clinical services on its Clarkston Health Care Village campus, which includes a physical therapy and sports medicine center, a breast center, sleep center, wound care center, laboratory draw station, surgery center, bariatric surgery center and a comprehensive cancer center. McLaren anticipates continued expansion in northern Oakland County as part of its community commitment and overall growth strategy.
To learn more about the new McLaren Clarkston Emergency Center and the other services provided on the McLaren Health Care Village campus, visit mclaren.org/clarkston.