"At first, the doctors and staff wanted us to be quiet, but then they'd tell us to come over to this bed or that bed. In the end, we had a dance party going. I mean, we had doctors and nurses and kids dancing and singing. It was a very successful performance."
It was successful up to the bitter end.
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"As we walked out, we saw doctors and nurses gathered around a little bed," he said. "It was the 2-month-old we had blown bubbles for."
She had died. "I came home pretty traumatized," he said. "That's when I decided what to do."
Cunningham, 32, a Waynesboro native and a College of William and Mary graduate, became a registered nurse and went to work in emergency medicine. He now plies his trade in the University of Virginia Medical Center's emergency department.
"I love the fact that I can make a difference, that I can help people at a difficult time in their lives," he said. "My experience with Clowns Without Borders comes in handy because people in the emergency room are in stressful situations and, sometimes, a little bit of clowning will help them get through it. You can help people medically and emotionally."
Dianne Hahn, director of Clowns Without Borders, does not clown but respects Cunningham's serious and silly sides.
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"He's probably one of the best people I've met as far as being able to turn on the persona and turn it off," Hahn said. "He carries through with what he decides to do, both as president of this organization and in his life. He decided he wanted to go into medicine and he did."
"Tim brings an intense playfulness to every moment on the road," said Sarah Liane Foster, a fellow performer. "He has a way of making each person he's performing for, or just talking to, feel personally connected to him. I haven't seen him in action as a nurse per se, but I bet he brings this same joy and connection to that work as well."
Clowns Without Borders aims to ease with laughter the tension and suffering of daily life in refugee camps, war zones and impoverished regions of the world. Without the big feet, fright wigs, grease paint and balloon animals of birthday party clowns - and facing language barriers - the international clowns focus on street theater and physical skills such as magic, acrobatics, juggling and skits.
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The volunteer outfit has no political motive. It does not educate, pontificate or indoctrinate. It operates on private donations and goes where invited by communities and relief agencies.
Cunningham has traveled with the troupe to a variety of places, including Africa, Mexico and Haiti. When he joined the organization in 2000, it was for the joy of performing.
Since then, he has had many adventures, from balloon funerals in South Africa to a performance in Chiapas, Mexico.
Cunningham recently returned to Haiti on a medical mission. "It was weird adjusting. The hardest part was getting to the clinic early in the morning and seeing 100 people who had been waiting for medical treatment for who knows how long. My first tendency was to go entertain them," he said. "My colleagues would have to come and get me and get me back to medicine."
Cunningham said he has not supplanted clowning with medicine and that medicine never can replace clowning. He loves both and believes they complement each other.
"The personality I have when I perform is very much like the personality I bring to the hospital," he said. "You have to be totally present and respond to whatever the situation requires and to be ready. Clowning helps a lot when you're in a stressful situation and something happens that you can laugh at and encourage others to laugh. It's important to laugh when funny happens in the midst of seriousness."
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View this post on my blog: http://travelnursesuccess.com/how-one-nurse-uses-a-clown-act-to-ease-suffering
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