Ana Katz knows what being in the hospital is like.

And not just because her dad, Dr. Kent Katz, is a physician.

When Ana was 8 and in third grade, she contracted E. coli and was hospitalized at Wyoming Medical Center for seven days. Showing no improvement, she was transferred to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City where she remained for 20 more days.

Now a sophomore at Kelly Walsh High School, Ana, 15, remembers with clarity a tiny gift she was given when she arrived at the big hospital in Salt Lake City.

"They gave me this doll," she told a group recently at Wyoming Medical Center. "I painted the face on and named it after my brother, who I liked then."

The soft doll comes faceless and nameless, dressed in a hospital gown, with a little IV tube sticking out of its arm. Colored markers are provided to draw on the face and hair.

The medical play doll serves several purposes, according to Katz's mom, Carolyn.

It provides support and it shows tiny patients what an IV is like.

"It gives them something to hold onto, so they don't pick at stuff we might have to attach to them," said pediatric registered nurse Val Cady. "You put anything in their hands and they hold on really tight."

As a community service project for her youth group through the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Ana, her mom and other women made 50 dolls to send to Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City.

"Then I thought what about the kids here?" Ana said.

She took the idea to her fashion design class at KW taught by Rhonda Robertson, and recently, students from two fashion design classes took 60 finished dolls to 4 North, the pediatrics wing at Wyoming Medical Center.

Just as the students arrived, in rolled Nikita Mayo, 3, with her IV plug still in her arm. Accompanied by her parents, she was maneuvering a go-cart purchased for the pediatrics unit by the Wyoming Medical Center Foundation.

With Ana's help, Nikita chose a doll dressed in a Dora hospital gown, much snazzier than the plain green one she was sporting herself. She accepted the doll, inspected it closely, then tossed it on the floor of the car as she made her way down the hall and back to her room.

"It made her happy. She smiled. She hasn't smiled in a while. She is so fed up with this place," said Nikita's mom, Melanie Boaz.

The 60 dolls went together in just a couple of weeks, Robertson said, because students used kits that Ana and her mother put together with pre-measured fabric and instructions.

"I just wanted to make the kids feel better," Ana said. "They made me feel better and I just wanted to return the favor."

Though she was sick seven years ago, Ana said she still remembers it.

"I was in isolation and I really didn't like being sick, but I thought it was really neat that they gave me this doll," she said, holding the well-preserved "Adam."

The day that the students visited the pediatric wing at WMC, there were six patients, up from the normal two or three, according to staff members.

The 60 dolls may not last forever, but the compassion shown by a group of young people will be remembered for years to come.

Just ask Ana Katz, first a recipient, and now a donor.

Reach community news editor Sally Ann Shurmur at (307) 266-0520 or sallyann.shurmur@trib.com