The hospital open day 2010
The 2010 open day was held at Southampton General Hospital on Saturday 2 October. This exciting annual event featured tours of theatres, pathology, the University of Southampton and Cancer Research UK labs, as well as the operation centre and the Biomedical Imaging Unit.
The theme of the 2010 open day was the patient journey, and many of our departments were open for everyone to come in and look around, including, cystic fibrosis, non-invasive cardiology, the Wellcome Trust Clinical Research Facility and the eye unit.
Video of the 2010 open day
Photos from the 2010 open day
Outside the Cancer Research UK building we had a giant inflatable colon, which visitors could walk through and learn about the health messages related to bowel cancer. The Cancer Research UK team also had activities going on inside, where visitors were able to extract DNA from a strawberry, look at cancer cells and UV infection controls, find out about chromosomes and take a closer look at what's hiding in our food
The nutrition stand provided plenty of information about the importance of MUST (malnutritian universal screening tool) and the patient pathway, along with healthy eating and diet advice. There were interactive activities including waist measuring, calculating visitors' BMI and exploring the MUST tool, along with games and quizzes with prizes.
Taplins nursery is the on-site nursery for staff at SUHT. They provided face painting, colouring competitions and information about childcare at SUHT.
Other stands on the day included SOHMED (Southampton overseas health and medicine), maternity and the Members' council.
The venous thromboembolism team had a stand at the open day, with information and leaflets for visitors about DVT (deep vein thrombosis) and how to prevent it, pulmonary embolisms and advice on surgical stockings. They also had information on celluitis and the hospital's prevention policies for these conditions.
There were demonstrations on all of our light and electron microscopes at the Biomedical Imaging Unit, along with exhibitions of the diagnostic work we carry out. We also had an exhibition of some of the artistic images that have been created using our microscopes and a fun quiz (with prize for the winner), in which we asked visitors to identify pictures of everyday objects magnified up to 1000 times using our microscopes.
Other departments that were open on the day included the spiritual care service, the cardiac short stay unit and the theatres