About the Authors

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Yael Hamburger was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland, and is currently a student at the University of Maryland, College Park. She has always enjoyed helping children and hopes to work with pediatric patients in a mental health setting, after receiving her Master’s in Public Health. Yael began volunteering for the University of Maryland Medical Center and the Center for Integrative Medicine during the summer of her junior year of high school and continued her internship during the spring and summer of her senior year. She greatly appreciated the unique opportunity she had to interact with the patients, particularly the pediatric patients. The opportunity allowed her to learn patients’ perspectives on illness and care and their desires to improve the in-hospital experience. Using the insight and advice patients gave her, Yael created the tools in this book focused on pediatric pain management and techniques to help young patients communicate more effectively with their doctors and care providers.

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Amanda Pugh was born and raised in Maryland and grew up in Bel Air with her mother and brother. She has been a volunteer at University of Maryland Medical Center with the Center for Integrative Medicine Team—which is where she met her co-authors Yael and Atika! Amanda is creative and loves to draw, so she had a lot of fun making many of the pages in this book. She is a student at the University of Lynchburg in Virginia and wants to become a pediatric nurse so that she can help children physically heal while also teaching them about developing coping strategies to mentally and spiritually heal even once they become adults. Amanda feels so blessed that she is part of something that can make a positive difference in children’s lives. She wants children to take comfort and find peace of mind in the empowering activities in My Healing Path. Amanda hopes that this can be a tool that children use to cope with stress and can bring a little ray of sunshine and peace into their day. 

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Atika Wasim was born and raised in Baltimore, Maryland. Before she was born, her father was shot at work and had multiple surgeries over many years to fix his injuries. Because of his condition, Atika and her family made frequent trips to the University of Maryland Medical Center, including an extended stay beginning in August, 2016. To occupy herself and entertain those in the hospital room, Atika began drawing on the whiteboard in her father’s room. What started as simple doodling resulted in beautiful artwork admired by every family member, visitor, and care provider that entered the room. Atika has taken an active role in this book project, as one of the main artists and a major contributor to this piece. She hopes one day to be a pediatric cardio-thoracic surgeon.

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