Author: Megan

March 18, 2019

Thank you Rabbi Benji for visiting us and sharing the inspirational work of Dream Doctor Slinky (aka Ariel Keren) at ALYN Hospital Pediatric & Adolescent Rehabilitation Center in Jerusalem!

Please enjoy this behind-the-scenes look at how medical clowns work in this world-renowned pediatric rehabilitation hospital…

The Dream Doctors Project is proud of the immigrants from all over the world who work as medical clowns in medical centers all across Israel. This is an incredibly diverse country and our hospitals reflect that diversity. Just like our patients and medical staff, Dream Doctors medical clowns speak many languages, come from many cultural backgrounds and belong to many faiths.

We thank The Jewish Agency for Israel for this wonderful profile (in Hebrew) of Dream Doctor Stuart Kingston, an immigrant to Israel from the UK, who works at Wolfson Hospital in Holon.

We are so grateful to our friends at the Righteous Crowd, a micro-giving platform that engages the Jewish community in supporting impactful not-for-profit organizations, for choosing Dream Doctors as their featured nonprofit organization of the week!

“In the Talmud, we read ‘when the month of Adar arrives, happiness increases.’ With this week’s celebration of Purim (during the Hebrew month of Adar II), we are excited to feature The Dream Doctors Project that brings joy to more than 200,000 hospitalized patients per year through therapeutic medical clowns in Israel.”

Dream Doctor Avital Dvory is known for traveling all over the world to give training and lectures about medical clowning. And in the last few weeks she has also hosted programs for medical clowns from abroad here in Israel!

Medical clowns from Sykehusklovnene the association for medical clowning in Norway learned from Avital about Dream Doctors’ participation in medical procedures and work in treatment rooms.

And 2 medical clowns from a hospital in Zurich, accompanied by their Head Nurse, visited both of Avital’s hospitals, Meir Medical Center in Kfar Saba and HaEmek Hospital in Afula. At Meir the group also met Dream Doctors Penny Hanuka and Dvorit Ben Yosef and at HaEmek they met Dream Doctor Yaron Sancho Goshen.

“Dream Doctors take the skills they hone daily in Israeli hospitals and apply them at scenes of despair, death and destruction across the globe.” -Abigail KLein Leichman

This fantastic report from ISRAEL21c covers the history of Dream Doctors’ work overseas, from the first mission by David Dush BarasHi and Jerome Arous, to more recent missions by Zoya Hayat, Shoshi Ofir, Rotem Goldenberg, Noam Inbar, Roni Vidman and Nimrod Eisenberg…

We are so excited to be returning to the AIPAC Policy Conference in Washington, DC from March 24-26th!

Come visit our booth in the AIPAC Village to meet some of our talented medical clowns: David Dush BarasHi of Hadassah Hospital, Esti Mittelberg of HaEmek Hospital, Ariel Keren of ALYN Hospital Pediatric & Adolescent Rehabilitation Center, Michal Korman of Tel HaShomer Hospital, and Smadar Harpak of Ichilov Hospital!!

For the last 4 years, Hadasim Elementary School in Tzur Hadassah has hosted an annual event for students and their parents to create special kits for hospitalized children.The most recent program featured a talk by Dream Doctor Nehama Perel and one of our favorite patients, Ofer Avraham, both from Hadassah Hospital in Jerusalem. It was an emotional and exciting event for everyone involved and we’re very grateful to be a part of it!

Three of the Dream Doctors at Ziv Hospital, Eyal Serri, Yaron Ben-Menachem, and Shoshi Ofir are participating in a special training to become certified to work in the hospital’s “Snoezelen”. As far as we know, this is the first time that medical clowns have ever been included in this type of training or invited to work in a “white room” so the Dream Doctors Project is excited to be pioneering this new concept! Snoezelen is a very unique and special place inside the hospital and only professionals who are certified may lead therapy sessions there. The space has all kinds of equipment that allows for a completely customized multi-sensory experience where the patient is in total control of their surroundings and, through the guidance of a professional therapist, can create an optimized environment with incredible therapeutic benefits for behavioral disorders, learning disabilities, mental health, autism, brain injury and more. The Dream Doctors joining this team are thrilled to be on the exclusive list of therapists who can engage in this type of groundbreaking and specialized work with their young patients!

Dream Doctor Ran Asulin has been making a huge difference in the Plastics Department at Soroka Hospital for the past year! Dr. Yaron Shoham, the Director of Soroka’s Burns Unit and Chairman of the Israeli Burns Association said, “Taki, the medical clown, plays with the children, makes them laugh, distracts them from their anxiety and pain and helps them deal successfully with the clinic.”

Dream Doctors Johnny Khbeis and Guy Porter welcomed a fantastic group of students from the the Bronfman Center for Jewish Student Life at NYU to Saint Vincent De Paul French Hospital in Nazareth. “Kookoorikoo” and “Losho” gave the students insight into what it’s like for Jewish and Arab medical clowns to work together in the Israeli medical system, shared their personal stories of treating Syrian refugees in Israeli hospitals, and introduced some basic medical clowning tools that can be used with hospitalized children.