“Ministering to sick children goes beyond medication and technology.  When a child begins to laugh it means he’s probably beginning to feel better.  I see the clowns as healers.” – Dr. John M. Driscoll Jr., former Chairman of the Pediatrics Department at Morgan Stanley Children’s Hospital of Columbia Presbyterian Medical Center in New York City

Clown Care, the Big Apple Circus’s signature community outreach program, brings the joy of the classical circus to hospitalized children at 18 leading pediatric facilities across the United States.  For a complete list of partnering hospitals, please click here.  Circus Co-Founder Michael Christensen created the program in 1986, based on his desire to provide a unique service to youngsters undergoing treatment in pediatric facilities.  In partnership with a participating hospital’s chief medical and administrative staff, members of the Clown Care team conduct ‘clown rounds,’ their own version of medical rounds, where the healing power of humor is always the prescription.

Currently, 97 committed and talented professional artists conduct clown rounds one to five days a week, year-round, making nearly 250,000 visits to young patients every year.  Clown doctors are trained in specific hygienic practices and protocols and in special issues related to interacting with hospitalized children.  Performers collaborate with doctors and staff to design a program that fits the needs of each hospital.  They visit children in both inpatient and outpatient units, including intensive care, emergency room, physical therapy, bone marrow transplant, pediatric AIDS, and hematology/oncology.

To read about the courageous spirit of one little boy, as told by cancer survivor Karen McCarty, Associate Creative Director of the Clown Care program, please click here. This story is part of a collection that appears in the recently released publication "Chicken Soup for the Soul, The Cancer Book."