Why do hospitals need clowns?

Carrying this love and innocence, clown art enters the challenging space of healthcare.
According to Article 31 of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, children have the right to engage in play and recreational activities. This is an indispensable developmental right that cannot be taken away. However, when children become ill and are hospitalized, their world is highly controlled. When to eat, when to receive an injection, and where it will hurt are all beyond their control. They lose control over their lives and are placed at the very bottom of the medical power structure. This feeling of confinement can easily cause stress and trauma.
Then, Dr. Red Nose knock on the door and come in.
Medical clowns usually work in pairs. This is not only for performance design, but also to create a situation. Luc Ducros, Director of Training at Dr. Red Nose, once gave an example: Faced with an anxious child, one clown wants to enter the hospital room, but the other clown is “too afraid” and gets stuck at the doorway, unable to go in.
Watching these two clumsy adults, the child may feel a sense of identification: “He is afraid just like me!” Then, the perspective is reversed. A child who normally can only obey adults now becomes someone who can comfort the clown and help the clown overcome fear. “It’s no longer me who is afraid; he is afraid, and I can help him!”
Through this kind of improvisational play, the clowns return the “right to decide” and the “right to refuse” to the child. In the hospital room, the child can even loudly order the clown to leave. This psychological empowerment enables the child to regain a sense of control and confidence in an unstable environment.

People often ask, “Are Dr. Red Nose drama therapists?” No, we are professional performing artists. Drama therapy has clearly defined medical goals; what clowns offer is a kind of “joy without demands.”
A professional clown is an actor who works with “emotion.” They do not preach; instead, through improvisation, they incorporate the child’s emotions into the situation.
Fear can be transformed through play. There was once a little girl named Xiao-Hong (pseudonym) who had brain cancer and was about to undergo surgery to remove her eye. When the clown asked her what she wanted to play, she said frankly, “I want to remove your eye!” The clown did not shy away, but immediately cooperated in staging an absurd scene of “operating on the clown.” By “practicing” surgery on the clown, fear was no longer taboo, but became surrounded by laughter.
Anger, too, can be freely released. Faced with an incurable illness, a boy named Xiao-Zhi stabbed himself with a toy knife every day to express his resentment. The medical clowns brought out red ribbons and toy guns and played an exaggerated “contest of ways to die” with him. In that magical safe space, death became an opponent that could be challenged, and his anger finally found an outlet.
Sadness can be accompanied in silence. In the intensive care unit, Xiao-Xin’s condition had worsened; tubes covered her body, and tears gathered in her eyes like a small lake. The medical clowns did not rush to make her laugh. Instead, they stayed by her side with an extremely slow rhythm and soft humming. They let her know that it is normal to be afraid, and that emotions need an outlet.

Under strict infection-control and medical regulations, every performance by Dr. Red Nose requires extremely meticulous preparation. They do not interfere with medical procedures and even provide actual “medical companionship.”
There was once an infant under one year old who was preparing to have blood drawn. With the clown’s gentle guitar music and soothing presence, the baby not only did not cry or fuss, but did not resist at all, enabling the nurse to complete the procedure smoothly. For infants and young children with severe physical or mental disabilities or covered with tubes, the clowns slow down their pace and accompany them with simple sounds and gentle movements. Once, a baby with congenital heart disease was held and softly hummed to by a clown. The baby’s rapid breathing gradually became calm, and the blood oxygen saturation shown on the monitor even reached 100 percent for a time.
Pushing open the door of a hospital room is like entering an entirely new world. Dr. Red Nose are responsible for bringing children’s boundless imaginations to life.
Once, a little girl’s hospital room had been decorated by her parents as the castle from Frozen. The clowns immediately transformed into attendants and guards, accompanying the girl in her princess dress as she pushed her IV stand through the corridor in a parade, turning the entire hospital ward into her kingdom in an instant. On another occasion, a four-year-old boy enthusiastically taught a clown about Spider-Man’s various superpowers, even performing “web-slinging” that sent the clown flying to the other end of the corridor. In that space, no one is a passive patient; everyone is a magician in the script of their own life.

To move with ease in hospital rooms where life and death hang in the balance, extremely rigorous training is required behind the scenes. A qualified Dr. Red Nose must undergo six months of intensive training, including artistic techniques, medical education, and child developmental psychology.
The healing power brought by this professionalism has received rigorous scientific validation.
In 2021, a quantitative study by Associate Professor Wei-Wen Wu of National Taiwan University’s Department of Nursing, published in the authoritative international journal Journal of Nursing Scholarship, found that intervention by Dr. Red Nose could significantly improve the short-term emotional states of hospitalized children with cancer, including young children aged 4–10 and adolescents aged 11–18. In 2023, the team’s subsequent research further confirmed that medical clown services could significantly reduce the psychological distress of parents of ill children.
The World Health Organization defines health as not merely the absence of disease, but a state of complete physical and mental well-being. Experiencing happiness is a basic human right for everyone. Laughter and humor can activate the body’s self-healing mechanisms and reduce stress hormones; this is the scientific value of the clown prescription.

Many people think that being a medical clown is a job that consumes tremendous psychological energy. Yet, as Dr. Red Nose genuinely experience, what we receive in hospitals far exceeds what we give. No matter how immense the life challenges faced by sick children and their families may be, the resilience they demonstrate always gives the clowns an immeasurable amount of energy.
There was once a mother who had lost her child. Several months later, she made a special visit to thank Dr. Red Nose. Through her tears, she said, “Thank you for allowing my child to be happy and enjoy the childhood every child deserves during the final period of their life. Knowing that my child left this life with a smile is the greatest comfort a mother could have in her lifetime.”
From exploring the truth and vulnerability of humanity in the theater, clown art has evolved into selfless companionship and love in healthcare settings. We are Dr. Red Nose, and we bring clown art into hospitals. We are not only responsible for making people laugh; at the most difficult moments, we are responsible for helping you hold the unavoidable tears in life. And when we laugh together, we are all held in love.

• 《In-Depth Study of Dr. Red Nose Organization》 (2025 compilation), Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• 《Dr. Red Nose—Story Collection》 (internal hospital-room story records), Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• 《Dr. Red Nose—Performance Locations and Frequency, and Performer Statistics》 (statistics through February 28, 2026), Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• 《2025 Introduction to Dr. Red Nose》 annual report presentation, Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• 《2025 Seventh Dr. Red Nose Actor Recruitment Guidelines》, Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• 《Supplementary Information on Dr. Red Nose》 legal and administrative information, Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• Ma Chao-Chi (2021), “The Clown Theater You Don’t Know,” Cross-Strait Children’s Literature Journal.
• Ma Chao-Chi (2022), “Returning the Right to Play to Children,” CommonWealth Magazine—Independent Review.
• Ma Chao-Chi (2024), “Laughter Is a Human Right: When We Laugh Together, We Are All in Love.”
• Luc Ducros (2021), “Actors Need Clown Training—It Helps Actors Liberate Themselves.”
• Luc Ducros, “Why Clowns Should Be in Hospitals” (Pourquoi le clown a sa place à l’hôpital).
• Tseng Ching-Wen (2023), “Dr. Red Nose and Drama Therapy: Creating a People-Centered, Friendly Healthcare Environment Through Clown Performance,” Taiwan Red Nose Clown Association, a civic organization.
• Wu Wei-Wen et al. (2023), 《The Emotional Effects of Medical Clown Services on Parents of Children Receiving Cancer Treatment: A Quasi-Experimental Study》 (Medical clowning influences the emotions of parents of children undergoing cancer treatment: A quasi-experimental study), Journal of Pediatric Nursing.
• National Taichung Theater (2021), 《Summer FUN Time Festival Program Guidebook》 (including an introduction to physical theater).