OttawaA special toy is helping young patients at Ottawa’s children’s hospital understand their medical journey, and it was all dreamed up by four University of Ottawa medical students.A small team of medical students isn’t monkeying around with pediatric careGabrielle Huston · CBC News · Posted: Oct 05, 2025 4:00 AM EDT | Last Updated: 9 hours agoMedical Monkeys, made by University of Ottawa medical students and volunteers, can have the same prosthetics as the children who own them. (Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa)A special toy is helping young patients at Ottawa’s children’s hospital understand their medical journey, and it was all dreamed up by four University of Ottawa medical students.One of the founders, Maya Morcos, told CBC Radio’s All In A Day that the project began because she loved to crochet.”At some point, we had to do something with [the projects] or else they just pile up in the house,” she joked.That’s when Morcos and her friends Amir-Ali Golrokhian-Sani, Angela Li, and Bassam Jeryous Fares decided to combine their artistic and pediatric skills to create Medical Monkeys.The founders of Medical Monkeys, from left to right: Amir-Ali Golrokhian-Sani, Angela Li, Bassam Jeryous Fares and Maya Morcos. (Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa)The crochet monkey toys are fitted with specially-designed, 3D-printed prosthetics that represent medical procedures familiar to some patients at the Children’s Hospital of Eastern Ontario (CHEO).”Frankly, prosthetics are under-represented, cochlear implants, all these things are basically under-represented in toys,” said Golrokhian-Sani.”We were hoping to create something that would have that image for a child who was facing the same situation.”Educational and engaging The team has made monkeys with glasses, prosthetic arms and legs, cochlear implants, G-tubes, tracheostomy tubes and stomas.Morcos said they find models for the implants online, adapt them for the monkeys and figure out how best to attach them to the crochet body.”It’s a pretty fun process, to be honest,” she said.Maya Morcos, shown with an armload of Medical Monkeys, says the project began because she loves to crochet. (Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa)The Child Life team at CHEO helps to educate children and prepare them for their surgeries, Golrokhian-Sani explained. That team tells the Medical Monkeys how many of each design are needed.Because of confidentiality considerations, Medical Monkeys can only deliver the toys, not give them directly to the patients, Morcos said. But according to the doctors they work with, the toys have a big impact.”There was one that was particularly heartwarming of this young girl who had to have a leg amputation,” Marcos said.”She was so excited to meet her monkey…. She would even get the doctors and nurses to do all the little procedures on the monkey first before on her.”The Medical Monkeys team is continuing the project and said they’re “always” looking for more volunteers to help out.In December of 2024, they could only only donate 9 monkeys. They’ve since grown to have 20 community volunteers, and in their most recent drop this June, they delivered almost 50 monkeys.”The community response has been amazing,” Morcos said.7:47Lifting spirits, and helping to explain a hospital stay, one crocheted loop at a timeWe meet the medical students making crocheted monkeys for kids at CHEO, complete with 3D-printed prosthetics.Prosthetics are under-represented in toys, Amir-Ali Golrokhian-Sani says. (Faculty of Medicine, University of Ottawa)ABOUT THE AUTHORGabrielle is an Ottawa-based journalist with eclectic interests. She’s spoken to video game developers, city councillors, neuroscientists and small business owners alike. Reach out to her for any reason at gabrielle.huston@cbc.ca.Follow Gabrielle on BlueskyFollow Gabrielle on InstagramWith files from CBC Radio’s All In A Day
Crochet monkeys educate and comfort children at CHEO
