Welcome to Suffolk Artlink’s December 2011 newsletter, in which artist, Filomena Cristallino, talks about her work with us as a Clown Doctor.
The Clown Round project spreads laughter and comfort to children and young people in hospital helping them to deal with what can be traumatic and anxious times. The project currently takes place on the children’s wards of Colchester, Ipswich and James Paget Hospitals and in hospices.
Suffolk Artlink’s staff and trustees would like to take this opportunity to thank the 78 talented artists we work with every year. They make the world a better place.
Back row – left to right: Dr Professor Hadron Klutz (Cosmo Hardy),
Dr Fillie Fidget (Filomena Cristallino), Dr Hyacinth Haystack (Vicki Weitz)
Front row: Dr Christobell Misschief (Chris Draude) and Dr Gertude
(Senior Consultant).
As a clown doctor I make sure my props trolley (mine is bright pink with black spots) has all the other paraphernalia needed for a busy day. Sometimes everything comes out of the bag and gets used and at other times only a few bits and pieces see the light of day. With our work you never know what to expect, so being able to improvise with anything that comes to hand, is very handy and you might be amazed or dare I say, even impressed, by what we can do with a paper sick bowl and a bed pan! (it’s always good to check they are unused first though!)
If I’m working at the Ipswich Hospital I usually meet my colleague Chris Draude aka Dr. Misschief, in the car park and we then make our way to the children’s department for a hand over with the play specialist team. In the handover they give us a run down of the children they would like us to visit, during which I am usually itching to get changed because there are children out there waiting to see us. We then go off to transform ourselves into clown doctors, my changing room, if it’s free, is a bathroom down the corridor from the play room. We don’t wear clown make up, but we do have nice shiny red noses and colourful headbands. The nose can always come off if a child or adult is a little wary of clowns and we can use it as a prop instead.
Chris and I then meet up again in the play room and greet each other as our new personas Dr. Misschief and Dr. Fidget. If there are children in the play room, we introduce ourselves to them and have a little sing song before getting our trolleys and making our way in a cloud of bubbles and harmonica music to the next patient. We are always mindful not to get in the way of any medical staff, but are always on hand if they need our help, in particular with distraction from a medical procedure.
There really isn’t a typical day on the wards as each day is different, but we always make sure if a child is a regular patient, we know their name and spend some time with them doing their favourite thing which could be anything from singing a song, doing some magic or teaching some circus skills.
By the time we leave, we will have seen all the children on our list; they will have received a heart or animal shaped balloon, a sticker and sometimes some homework given out by Dr. Misschief. Our homework is always welcome, as it’s usually a lovely picture to colour in and keep.
We then go back to our changing rooms and revert back to being ourselves before saying our goodbyes to the staff.
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