VIVACITY | Friday, January 15, 2010 | Email | Print | 
Clown doctor
Ekatmata Sharma
If you ever happen to walk into a hospital in Israeli, don’t be surprised to find ‘clowns fooling around’ in their corridors and rooms. No, it is not that they have circuses in the hospitals. It is just that doctors out there have realised that the ‘clowns’ with smiling painted faces with red nose and wearing whacky clothes and big shoes can help patients in way that traditional medicines can’t.
And they are not just ‘clowns.’ Rather professional medical clowns, also referred to as the drama therapist whose job is to spread joy and laughter within the somber walls of a hospital.
Theatre actors Noam Rubinstein and Yolana Zimmerman (who are a part of group performing at the ongoing Bharat Rang Mahotsav) have been professional medical clowns from last four years. “If we can make a sick child laugh out loud and in the process if it helps in his/her treatment, then the happiness it gives us is the most satisfying thing for us,” says Rubinstein
Back home in Israel, both of them are part of The Dream Doctors, a group of professional medical clowns. “The Dream Doctors project integrates professional clowning into the medical services provided at Israeli hospitals. Dream Doctors operate at 16 hospitals throughout the country, with 70 Dream Doctors active in various pediatric wards and clinics.
The professional medical clowns work in coordination with the doctors and other hospital staff for the treatment of the patient. Says Zimmerman, “Though we are theatre actors, but we call this act of ours as clown therapy. We not only make them laugh, but we make them heal with this laughter. With clown doctors around, the hospital doesn’t remain a dark gloomy place but turns into a lively and joyful place of healing. We have worked with children suffering from various diseases such as AIDS and have even been to disaster struck regions like Indonesia and Thailand.”
The clown doctors are not just confined to healing patients in Israel alone but also operate in Australia, USA, UK, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, South Africa, France, Germany, Italy, Austria, Switzerland, Holland, Finland, Hong Kong, Spain, Czech Republic, Turkey, and Belarus.
It is said that clowns have worked in hospitals since the time of Hippocrates. The entire front page of Le Petit Journal of Sept 13, 1908 has a drawing of clowns working in a hospital. The recent example is Dr Patch Adams, who used to put on a red clown nose while working in hospital 32 years ago. In fact, Dr Adams work has been portrayed by Robin Williams in the movie Patch Adams. The movie was a success, as it showed the reality of how joy can be found in life, even if that joy is fleeting.
Professional clown doctors began working in hospitals in 1986 under a programme called the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit (CCU),
The clown doctors use their skills such as magic, balloon sculpting, puppetry, storytelling and others to amuse children with doses of fun and help them deal with the range of emotions like fear, anxiety, loneliness and boredom they experience in hospital.
Says Rubinstein, “Dr Adams believed that corporate medicine has killed the spirit of compassion. He said that humour and laughter was one of the ways of bringing compassion back into medicine. The ‘old’ model of medicine incorporated the arts and this is what he perceived as missing in the scientific model of medicine.”
Medical clowns have been integrated into hospitals, primarily to work with children. Recently, there have been attempts to integrate clowns to work with adult patients in emergency rooms, but this intervention method has not yet been systematically implemented and studied.
“It is easier to make a child laugh than an adult. In the framework of healing by humour, use is made of a medical clown who is in fact a person who has undergone special training in acting and clowning, combined with medical knowledge and an understanding of patient behaviour. Some medical clowns come from the world of entertainment, and are actors, clowns, and magicians. Some have a paramedical or medical background,” says Zimmerman.
The benefits of this laughter therapy have been found to be many. Bed bound patients get valuable cardiovascular workout by laughing, which causes rapid muscular contractions and deep breathing. As frequent belly laughter empties the lungs of air, it is especially beneficial for patients who are suffering from emphysema and other respiratory ailments.
Noam Rubinstein and Yolana Zimmerman would be performing the play Odysseus Chaoticus today at LTG auditorium at 7pm.
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