PainRelief.com Interview with:
Orit Karnieli-Miller, PhD
Associate Professor
Head of the Department of Medical Education,
Sackler Faculty of Medicine, Tel Aviv University, Israel

PainRelief.com: What is the background for this study?

Response: In recent years Medical clowns have been more and more integrated into hospitals. Still, there needs to be more understanding of their roles, therapeutic goals, and skills. This understanding is necessary both to help professionalize medical clowning and train them and allow other health professionals to work well with them.

To do this, we systematically analyzed medical clowns’ skills within three typical challenging encounters: with an adolescent who is in pain, not willing to do recommended treatment exercise; with an adolescent and a physiotherapist in a painful treatment session; and with a mother of a sick child.