The Reporter: February 1996, Vol.7, No.1
Big Apple Clown Care Unit

Into the drab and frightening experience of a child in the hospital sometimes comes a little joy and laughter. For nearly a decade, the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit h as brightened the day of hundreds of pediatric inpatients, the comedians' silliness a welcome relief from day-to-day discomfort and separation from home. But, apart from putting a smile on the face of a child, how much do these red-nosed pranksters contri bute to healing for real illness?

Big Apple Circus "doctors" alleviate anxiety and fear in young patients through their use of clown antics.

Through the Richard and Hinda Rosenthal Center for Alternative/ Complementary Medicine and the Department of Pediatrics, research-ers hope to find out. In December 1995, the Clown Care Unit and the Rosenthal Center awarded grants for three one-year scie ntific studies to determine the healing effects of the clowns' activities. Although the Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit has performed at Babies & Children's Hospital and other New York hospitals for almost 10 years, no attempt has been made to define the role these activities play in a treatment regimen.

Dr. John M. Driscoll Jr., acting chairman of pediatrics and professor of clinical pediatrics at Babies & Children's Hospital, where the CCU started, said: "The Big Apple Circus Clown Care Unit is absolutely integral to the operation of the hospital. These grants are a tremendous asset in the effort to demonstrate the effectiveness of the CCU."

"We hope this research will bring more awareness to a unique resource that has not before been studied," added Dr. Fredi Kronenberg, director of the Rosenthal Center and former Irving scholar. "If the studies document a therapeutic effect, the obvious ne xt step will be to try to understand the mechanisms involved."

Proposals for the studies were submitted last summer. The three grants, supported by awards of up to $50,000 each, will fund studies in clown therapy and pediatric surgery (to be conducted by Drs. Arthur J. Smerling and Eric Skolnick), the impact of clow ns during invasive procedures in pediatric oncology day clinics (to be studied by Dr. Kenneth S. Gorfinkle), and the effect of clowns on decreasing physiological and psychological indicators of distress in children and adolescents undergoing cardiac cathe terization (to be conducted by Dr. Jonathan A. Slater).

The Big Apple Clown Care Unit began in 1986 as a five-week program at Babies & Children's Hospital. Today, its activities have expanded to seven metropolitan hospitals, and its affiliated programs operate in France, Brazil, and Germany.