Geanine Hunt

Geanine Hunt received her B.S. in child development at Northern Illinois University and her M.Ed. at Erikson Institute. She is a certified child life specialist and holds certificates in both infant massage training as well as in Lekotek training. She started her career in childcare, working at Christopher House both as a state pre-kindergarten master teacher and then as a director of the Head Start program. For the last 23 years, Geanine has worked as a child life specialist. She first began at Schwab Rehabilitation Hospital and then moved to Children’s Memorial Hospital/Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago. She has served patients and families in the pediatric intensive care, the neurosurgery unit and is currently in outpatient surgery.

Geanine began teaching Medical Terminology and Human Physiology (C474) in 2020. The goal of this course is to help future child life specialists become comfortable with basic medical terminology, reading chart notes and to learn how to provide anticipatory guidance, education and preparation to children and caregivers about hospitalization and medical procedures.

As the service of child life begins to become the standard in pediatric hospitals, Geanine feels passionate about helping to prepare students entering the field to provide the highest level of holistic care. Child life specialists are a huge part of the medical team and are often referred to as emotional first responders. Teaching Erikson students is one way that she can impact the field in a positive way.