Press releases

Released July 11, 1997
Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital news release

Clowns Take Up Residence
at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital

For more information, call 203-688-2488 or E-mail Ken Best

The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit®, a group of professional performers who make bedside visits to patients, has taken up residence in Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital, complete with their special "pedi-hat-trick" treatments, like red nose transplants, kitty cat scans and chocolate milk transfusions.

The Clown Care Unit® at Children's Hospital is the only such unit in Connecticut and the tenth nationwide. Other units are in Boston, Washington, D.C. and seven New York City hospitals.

"We want to add to the wonders of the Children's Hospital the warmth, thrills and delights these wonderful doctors of laughter will bring to our patients and staff," said Brian Condon, vice president for clinical administration.

Professionally trained clowns visit the hospital three days a week and treat children's funny bones using juggling, mime, magic and music. Some of their special medical treatments include an eye exam using two rubber chickens (one large, one small), a cardiac accelerator (a hairy spider) and plate-spinning platelet tests

"Sick children need to laugh. That's what brought us into the hospital. Once we got in there, we realized that parents of sick children need to laugh and that staff who are taking care of sick children need to laugh as well," said Michael Christensen, co-founder of the Big Apple Circus and originator of the Clown Care® program. "I guess you could say joy takes no prisoners. We had no idea that our work would evolve the way that it has. This is not a program that anyone sat down and tried to figure out. It evolved out of a desire to do service and bring joy and delight, celebration, imagination, awe, wonder, fantasy and vulnerability into this facility."

Researchers at Columbia University's Rosenthal Center for Alternative/Complimentary Medicine recently launched scientific studies to examine the CCU's healing effect on hospitalized children.

"Our department has recognized for a long time the importance of the therapeutic environment," said Dr. Norman Siegel, the hospital's chief of pediatrics. "The clowns add a tremendous dimension to a Child Life program which has been in the forefront of this aspect of children's care for a long time. They also remind all of us there are things we need to laugh about every day about ourselves and the environment we work in the process of taking care of children. To watch the staff smile at time when it may have been a long night for a new intern or a hard day ahead for a nurse, adds tremendously to our ability to care for children."

The clowns, who have names like Dr. Chester Drawers and Doc Geezer, work in teams of two or three. Each team completes an intensive training program to learn proper hygiene and hospital procedures. They visit all areas where children are treated, including inpatient units, outpatient centers, physical therapy units, intensive care units and highly specialized units like those for bone marrow transplants.

Funding for the Clown Care Unit® at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital is provided through the Greenwich-based Garrett B. Smith Foundation, which launched an annual golf outing at the Stanwich Club in Greenwich in May. The foundation was established by Scott and Heidi Smith in memory of their son, Garrett, who was treated for cancer at Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital

"Our little boy, Garrett, didn't make it. But we had a nice two-and-a-half weeks in an institution which really took care of us and our son," said Heidi Smith. "He didn't have the clowns to enjoy. As we met various people through the New York Clown Care organization, we got to know them and the clowns. We thought this would be something he would have enjoyed. It's very important to us to be able to come back here and say, we had something horrible happen, but this is something great. Let's take something really bad and make it nice. We thought it was a perfect fit of something that our son, the doctors and the parents on that floor could have really used. That's why we're here."

"We just came away tremendously impressed with the dedication of people at the hospital--the hard job they had and the sheer energy and effort they put into it," added Scott Smith. "We felt if we could give something back and make it a little bit easier, it would be really worthwhile. It's really the people who work here and devote their lives to taking care of children who we feel deserve all the credit in the world."

Return to News Release Index

Home page URL: http://www.ynhh.org

All information is intended for your general knowledge and is not a substitute for medical advice or treatment for specific medical conditions. You should seek prompt medical care for any specific health issues and consult your physician before starting a new fitness regimen.