My young patients fly into surgery dressed as superheroes. Surgery became a lot less scary for them.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Leandro Brandão Guimarães . It has been edited for length and clarity.

When I first started operating on children as a pediatric ear, nose, and throat doctor 15 years ago, I remember personally struggling watching children enter the operating room with me. They were scared and often crying. Sometimes, they were screaming.

It was policy that parents couldn’t enter the operating room with us, which added to the children’s distress.

It bothered me a lot, especially once I had my own two children, and I started considering how I could make it easier for kids.

I wanted parents to be there for…