Dr Manuela Sapochnik

Dr Manuela Sapochnik is a consultant clinical psychologist at Starship children’s hospital and an honorary lecturer at Auckland University. Manuela has a particular interest in working with children and their families and with staff, on the management of procedural anxiety, pain and trauma. Manuela has worked for 17 years in both the UK and in New Zealand in research, teaching and clinical posts. In the UK she worked at Great Ormond Street children’s hospital where she wrote and ran their first adolescent pain management group. At Starship she has created a programme for teaching procedural anxiety management skills to staff that has been rolled out across the hospital and thorough teaching at Auckland University, for doctors, nurses and allied health.

Preparing Children and their Families for Painful Procedures at Starship 

The timely management of procedural anxiety has been repeatedly shown to have a highly significant impact on patients’ present and future physical and mental health outcomes. This short talk will outline some very practical ideas that can be utilised by all members of staff in service of that goal. These practices have been used at Starship over the last 2 years and have; increased both patient and staff satisfaction, are in line with international best practice guidelines and require almost no extra resources from our highly stretched services.