Marbles Kids Museum opens ambulance exhibit on healthcare careers

A transformed ambulance has taken over part of Marbles Kids Museum in downtown Raleigh, giving Wake County children a chance to step into hospital work instead of just hearing about it. The new exhibit, To the Rescue, is designed with WakeMed to introduce young visitors to emergency medicine, neonatal care, X-ray technology and other healthcare careers through play.

The exhibit opened June 12 at the museum on East Hargett Street, with a ribbon-cutting from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. A grand reopening celebration runs Saturday from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., with WakeMed activities including a Teddy Bear Clinic from 10 a.m. to noon, a mascot appearance from 12:30 p.m. to 1 p.m., pillowcase decorating from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m., splinting practice from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. and hospital career badge-making throughout the day. Marbles says the new space is fully accessible.

For families, the point is not just to entertain. Marbles chief learning officer Hardin Engelhardt has said medical play can help children work through fear, ask questions and feel more comfortable in real healthcare settings. Marbles, which says it serves children ages 0 to 10, built the exhibit as hands-on emergency medical play, the kind that lets children practice ideas before they face them in a clinic, an ambulance or an emergency department.

The partnership also lands in the middle of Wake County’s real healthcare landscape. WakeMed says its Children’s Hospital is the only pediatric inpatient care provider in the county, and its Children’s Emergency Department is the county’s only dedicated children’s ER and the first freestanding facility of its kind in North Carolina. WakeMed says that department is open 24/7 and staffed with board-certified emergency medicine physicians and child life specialists, making the museum exhibit a direct introduction to the kind of people children may meet in a real crisis.

To the Rescue replaces Marbles’ long-running ambulance display in the Around Town gallery, which has been part of the museum since 2007. That refresh comes as Marbles says it has welcomed more than 9 million visitors since opening on Sept. 29, 2007, serves nearly 700,000 people a year and still turns away more than 70,000 annually because of capacity limits and sold-out programs. In that context, the new exhibit is more than a makeover. It is a pipeline story, teaching Raleigh children what happens inside a children’s hospital while showing them that healthcare careers start with curiosity long before they start with a badge.