THE ACCOUNTANT_AUTUMN_2018_VER-7-L

LIFESTYLE
Clown Doctors: Nature or Nurture?
MAURICE SLEYPEN
MAURICE SLEYPEN PRESIDENT
OF DR KLOWN SINCE 2013 IS AN
ORGANISATIONAL PSYCHOLOGIST,
WHO WORKED FOR 20 YEARS AS
A HUMAN RESOURCES DIRECTOR
AND FOR 25 YEARS AS AN HR
CONSULTANT INTERNATIONALLY.
HE WAS A PROFESSOR IN
LEADERSHIP STUDIES AT THE
MANAGEMENT SCHOOL OF THE
UNIVERSITY OF ANTWERP.
Clown Doctors, employed professionals or volunteers,
are at work in paediatric hospitals in over 750 hospital clown
organisations around the world. They practice clown care:
Through their comic presence they bring children relief from the
anxiety, pain and boredom they experience when admitted to
hospital.
Clown doctors are a special breed of character with a
unique personality and name, such as Dr Cupcake in pastel
icing colours, Dr DoReMi who has an unstoppable urge to
sing, Dr Buttons, Dr OoPsiE, etc. Each wears a personalized and
decorated white medical lab coat to make the white coats of
the medical staff less scary.
The clowns often carry a variety of props but essentially,
any object or toy that is found in a patient’s room can be a tool
to clown with, using some imagination or magic, trying to find
that “one door” they can open for a child. Finally, all wear a red
nose, “the smallest mask in the world”, signalling: Here comes
fun!
Dr Klown in Malta started in 2011 as a 100% volunteer
association, counting today 45 volunteers, of which more than
half are Klown Doctors.
Can one be educated to become a Klown Doctor?
The volunteer Klown Doctors have no professional background
as clowns (neither are they medical doctors). They all pass
through a whole year of training in skills like mime, puppet play,
singing, music and dancing, magic, etc. Improvisation is probably
the most important skill of all, as they have to adapt to a different
situation in every room they visit and to the health of the child.
And of course, to apply all these skills in a paediatric ward
requires specific training, for which we have to call on the help of
specialists from abroad.
We believe that people can develop into a clown. There’s only
one major condition: The potential needs to be there! It is clear
that it helps to be “a natural clown”. They learn faster, are more
expressive and feel usually more at ease with changing from their
normal behaviour into clown mode.
Hospital clowns are strongly oriented towards the sick
child rather than towards their own performance. Success is
not to play out a good act, but whether the child has enjoyed a
moment of distraction, has been able to be a child again in an
unpleasant environment.
Is being a hospital clown an educational experience?
To give a simple answer: Yes.
Becoming a hospital clown is a process of personal
development. The experience of visiting the wards is enriching.
One develops as well empathy skills as the ability to master one’s
own emotions. The constant need for improvising increases one’s
flexibility of thought and creativity. Seeing children experience
so much pain and how most of them manage to deal with it,
humbles one and makes one count his/her own blessings. This
positive personal development is in fact the only reward they get
for their work and dedication, besides the satisfaction of seeing
smiles on the kids’ faces.
But clowns are only human. The level of suffering and pain
that hospitalised children live with, silently and not so silently,
defies description. The clowns are not always successful, at
least not in the sense that most people would judge the work.
Sometimes they are unable to help because what’s going on
in the room is beyond the reach of these “magicians of the
soul”. They play soft tunes and leave. But most of the time they
succeed to spread smiles among the young patients and even
have them experience hilarious moments, forgetting all about
the sad environment they’re in, leaving them with only one
request: “Will you come back tomorrow? Please??”
66 Autumn 2018