Meet the Clowndoctors: The performers bringing joy to children in hospital

The sound of guitar notes floats down a corridor in the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow.

It doesn’t take long to find the source of the sound, as two women, dressed in bright yellow coats, and wearing red noses, appear in the ward. Dr Pip and Dr GoGo are Clowndoctors, and today they’re meeting several children on the day unit.

As they play music and act out making a picnic, the young patients laugh and join in the charade. Pip uses her stretchy trousers to fan eight-year-old Saad – who comments on how good the “delicious air” feels.

The Clowndoctors are very different from the clinical teams the children are used to interacting with.

Dr Pip, aka Sarah Miele, said: “We’re very responsive, every visit is completely unique and different for each child and how they’re feeling and where they’re at.

“So we just meet them where they’re at. They’re the boss. They’re always the expert in the situation, and it all just comes from them.”

The Clowndoctors are regular visitors to hospitals across Scotland. Set up by the charity Hearts and Minds in 1999, the group is made up of professional performers.

They deploy skills like music, slapstick and mime, to engage with and comfort young patients.

Diane Thornton, one of the charity’s artistic directors, told Scotland Tonight: “We’re not party clowns. We’re there to really connect with the young people we’re working with in hospital with no expectation, to really connect and interact with them in the moment and how they’re feeling.

“So for a Clowndoctor to be able to do that, they’ve got to be really skilled and emotionally mature as to what’s happening in that moment for that young person.”

On the neurology ward, Dr Pip and Dr GoGo meet three-year-old Charlie Rose. They quickly develop a game, where Charlie Rose uses her hands to ‘throw’ the Clowndoctors around the room.

Research has shown that visits from Clowndoctors can help to reduce patients’ anxiety while in hospital.

Senior charge nurse Eleanor Selkirk says the Clowndoctors can also reveal things about the children that staff weren’t aware of.

“Sometimes we have a non-verbal child, who we may think isn’t able to see or hear or interact as well. When you watch them with the Clowndoctors, you’ll see them respond to them in a way that they don’t with us, simply because we didn’t know that that’s how they would react.

“So it’s nice once you see them react to them, you can often get a little bit more out of them when you’re doing things with them.”

You can watch the full report on Scotland Tonight: The ‘Clown Doctors’ on STV and the STV Player, tonight at 8:30pm.