In Israel, clowning is serious business. The Dream Doctors Project, Medical Clowning in Action, is comprised of a group of more than 100 healing professionals. They are professional members of medical teams at about 30 hospitals in that nation, and focus mostly on juvenile patients. They’ve been doing it for more than 20 years, serving hundreds of thousands of patients each year.
Dozens of research studies show medical clowns can bring a reduction in anxiety and pain. In fact, some procedures can be performed without any sedation at all, just with the clown’s help. Similarly, almost like an interpreter, kids convey to the clown their symptoms and other important information useful to doctors and nurses that the children might not otherwise feel comfortable sharing with anyone else.
Visiting America
Members of Israel’s renowned Dream Doctors Project visited Norfolk, Virginia’s Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters, blessing patients and their families as well as teaching their skills to health care providers. A medical clown named Nimrod Eisenberg told CBN News that humor, empathy and creativity serve as therapeutic tools in a hospital setting.
“A clown in a way is a symbol of optimism and hope and the ability to cope with problems,” he said. “Clowns love problems. We love when things go wrong and we fall down, we kick stuff, we kick the door. On the way out, suddenly a smile comes back. That smile tells us something about how we deal with problems in our lives.”
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Many of the play techniques are non-verbal, which is especially useful if there’s a language barrier or if a child can’t speak. CHKD’s director of Integrative Care was impressed with the way the clown communicates with children.
“Some patients are scared. Some parents are scared,” she said. “Some patients don’t know how to verbalize what they’re feeling or how they’re feeling. And so it comes out through play. And so the simple popping and moving of bubbles just really helped them to express themselves and to feel safe.”
Humanitarian Relief
In addition to hospitals, The Dream Doctors Project medical clowns regularly deploy to disaster zones, providing vital humanitarian relief to people around the world, such as Moldova, where they helped Ukrainian refugees, and Nepal, following an earthquake.
They faced their most challenging assignment, however, back home following the October 7th terror attacks. The Dream Doctors Project Chief Executive Officer Tsour Shriqui described to CBN News the early portion of that experience.
“All the villages around Gaza were destroyed,” he said. “People were killed, people were kidnapped, and the people who stayed there were evacuated to other places in Israel. And that’s where we get in. We went to see them in those places because a kid is a kid, right?”
Like never before, The Dream Doctors Project medical clowns had to put aside their own fear, anger, and grief for the sake of the children.
“The clown with those children is this imaginary friend that can give them feelings and support emotions that they really need at that time, without having to go into the psychology and the story of what has happened, to move forward, to see hope and to see optimism even in the darkest times,” Eisenberg said.
Many parents, who were described as looking like “the walking dead,” began to cheer up when they saw their children playing with the clowns. The moms and dads began to smile and play with their own children again. This unique type of compassion provided by the clowns also spread to other adults, including soldiers and former hostages.
The Work Continues
The Dream Doctors Project representatives told a gathering at Virginia Beach’s Jewish Community Center that their work in Israel continues.
“It is vital,” participant Sharon Goretsky told CBN News. “It is vital because those people are so traumatized.”
“I think we always, as a Jewish community, like to support our colleagues in Israel,” participant Dr. Edward Karotkin told CBN News. “We are big supporters of Israel and big supporters of our Jewish community here.”
While parts of life, such as medical issues, natural disasters, and war, can be scary, Israel’s The Dream Doctors Project medical clowns help take the edge off, for both children and adults.
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