Ohio pharmacy students learn to clown around

April 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Columbus Dispatch

COLUMBUS

The professor marched forward wearing a feathered wig and a bulbous red nose.

She was trailed by “Tinkerbelle Tyler” in a pink tutu, “Dorky Darrell” in a sparkling purple necklace and taped-up glasses, and “Banjo Pickin’ Bad Man” in a red straw hat and mismatched knee socks.

Pretty funny get-ups for pharmacy students and their teacher. But that was the whole idea.

“I felt ... funny,” laughed first-year student Megan “Sweetheart” Tang, 25, making her clowning debut with about 15 classmates last week at a Columbus daycare center for senior citizens.

The students are members of Prescription for a Smile, organized last school year by Cari Brackett, an associate clinical professor in Ohio State University’s College of Pharmacy.

The premise is simple: Use humor, laughter and even silliness to put patients at ease.

To learn how, students go with Brackett to nursing homes and other places where they can entertain residents with clownish attire and simple interactions.

“It gets you out of your comfort zone and allows you to talk to people in a way that makes them feel better,” said Simon “Banjo Pickin”’ Pence, 25, the second-year pharmacy student who heads the group.

Smile members bring a pocketful of balloons and bubbles and maybe a circle of string to thread into a “cat’s cradle” between their fingers. Last week, they also brought their dancin’ moves as they visited Active Day of Columbus.

The Active Day adults broke into hesitant smiles as Brackett and the students, each with his or her own funky look, circled them. Then the 1962 tune Mashed Potato Time came on, and the clown band, along with a few enthusiastic Active Day members, soon were dancing around the room.

“They make us laugh,” grinned Linda Penberthy, 63, of Columbus, as she shimmied across the floor.

“That was great,” said Will Ernst, 76, of Hilliard. “Somebody like that comes in and it’s really gonna wake us up.”

Brackett, 52, became interested in clowning in her 20s and embraced it again when she began teaching with the late Dr. John Stang at Ohio State. Stang had started a clowning group for medical students.

Through Stang, Brackett met Patch Adams, the doctor and social activist who became famous when Robin Williams portrayed him in a 1998 Hollywood movie. Adams found that clowning with patients made him a better doctor, and he’s been preaching that gospel ever since.

Clowning around breaks down barriers and offers a window into a patient’s life, Brackett said.

“The quality of information I get is much better,” she said.

Even pharmacists working at drugstores can use aspects of clowning to make a connection with each person they fill a prescription for, she said.

The clowning is a nice break for students, too.

“Laughter is good medicine,” said David “Dorky Darrell” Matthews, 27, a first-year pharmacy student. “I’m having a really good time doing this.”