At the Dr. Mehta’s Hospital auditorium on Sunday afternoon, a group of people sitting in a circle peered into handheld mirrors. Wearing a red clown’s nose, they proceeded to make faces while looking at the mirror and, a few minutes later, picked up hand puppets.
Response to puppets
“Case studies have shown that even if a patient doesn’t respond to a clown, they can respond to the puppets we hold,” explained Fif Fernandes. She and Hamish Boyd, co-founders of the MeDi Clown Academy, conducted a three-day MeDi Clowning Workshop in the city, which had participants ranging from theatre artists, doctors, singers, corporates to school students.
“Clowning is not just about the wigs, painted faces or large shoes and these aren’t things we follow when we visit hospitals as medical clowns. Through the course of this workshop, or ‘funshop’ as we call it, we’ve been speaking about the need to form connections, listen and empathise,” she explained.
The workshop, Ms. Fernandes said, was designed as an interactive and experimental introduction to medical clowning where the participants can reach out to hospitals for the benefit of the patients as well as their families and the hospital staff.
Final-year medical student Rithu Baskaran said that MeDi Clowning would play a major role in reaching out to patients.
“Having envisioned a future in paediatrics, I feel that something like this would help me connect a lot more to the children and contribute a lot to their healing,” she said.
Fun activities
Through the last three days, the participants also got an opportunity to engage and involve themselves in fun activities as well as learn about the etiquette and techniques involved.
“Be it an adult or a child in a hospital, it is important that we don’t impose ourselves. We check if they want to interact with us and are receptive before spending time with them,” explained Ms Fernandes.
While Keerthi Pandian, a theatre actor, said that she saw herself in the future, working with healthcare institutions, Uma Maheh from Ekam Foundation said that the workshop made them reflect and connect with people around them.
“It was spontaneous and we were almost re-humanising ourselves. We hope to take this to several public healthcare institutions in the state as well,” she noted.
When asked if medical clowning had picked up in the country, Ms Fernandes said that healthcare institutions were receptive to the idea so far.
“We will soon be partnering with a medical institution and offer courses,” she said.
