What is a smile on a child's face worth, especially if that child is ill and in the hospital? Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital (YNHCH) knows how hard it is for children and their families to deal with an illness and hospitalization. That's why, in 1997, Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital was proud to become the first hospital in Connecticut to present the Big Apple Circus Clown Care^sm.

Special kind of medicine

Three days a week, a team of two professionally-trained clowns come to Yale-New Haven Children's Hospital and offer their own special type of medicine to the children, their families and the staff. The "Doctors of Humor, Laughter and Hilarity" as the clowns call themselves.

Humor offers a way for children to cope with the intrusive atmosphere of a hospital. As one clown said, "We don't do this because we get paid. It comes from inside of us. You see the corner of a child's mouth turn up and that's it. That's why we're here."