SEND IN THE CLOWNS
Nurse Shelly Bazes-Bard returns to her alma mater in Israel promoting humor and health

By Batia Charpak, Advocate Correspondent

The following article appeared in the Jewish Advocate December 17-23, 2004 and is provided courtesy of the Jewish Advocate.

Tweedles is not your everyday, run-of-the-mill, clown. She doesn’t wear white face paint or sport the latest in clown fashion. She does not act in circuses, nor does she perform for children’s birthday parties. She is a hospital clown on a mission.

Tweedles, also known as Shelly Bazes-Bard, is a graduate of the Henrietta Szold Hadassah-Hebrew University School of Nursing. On Dec. 12, she returned to her alma mater on an exchange mission of health, humor, and education.

“I started making contacts with my classmates in Israel. We just had our 30th reunion, which I did not attend. A lot of them work in Hadassah, and a lot of them are connected, and they did whatever they needed to do and made contacts for me,” Bazes-Bard said. “There are issues with confidentiality. You don’t just bring a person off the street and put them in front of a bunch of children who are hospitalized.”

Bazes-Bard is a nurse/nurse practitioner and a member of the Jeannie Lindheim’s Hospital Clown Troupe.

“I wanted to find a way to give back to the world, basically to do some chessed. I personally needed some way to connect. I know health care so well, but I’ve been on the other side of it for such a long time. I needed a break from that,” Bazes-Bard said.

Her objective on her mission to Israel is to shadow the hospital clowns who perform at the Hadassah hospitals on Mt. Scopus and Ein Kerem. She hopes to share and compare techniques and foster relationships in anticipation of future exchange programs.

Hadassah has been in existence for 93 years and supports its many projects in Israel, the United States, and around the world.

“We support the projects which Hadassah owns in Israel, the two hospitals on Mt. Scopus and Ein Kerem, Young Judaea, Youth Aliyah, and Hadassah College in Jerusalem,” said Valerie Lowenstein, president of the Boston Chapter of Hadassah. “The purpose of the nurses council is to support the Hadassah nurses in Israel.”

This support comes in the form of fundraising and continuing education programs.

“Lots of times, when an organization fundraises for something, they want to fundraise for something really sexy, like an MRI machine or a radiation therapy suite or a state of the art whatever gizmo gadget of the month. But when nurses need very basic things, they are often not heard,” said Deborah Baronofsky, president of the Landy-Kaplan Nurses Council-Boston Chapter. “But we’re there to listen and raise money for things like med carts. Yeah, you might be able to send it down to be repaired, and it might be functional, but they might need something that’s more ergonomic, more comfortable to work with, with a higher security for meds that is needed today. This is something the nurses’ council is comfortable fundraising for.”

Another form of support is nursing missions to Israel, where American nurses visit Hadassah hospitals in hopes of learning new techniques.

For Bazes-Bard, her mission is not just one of education but of reminiscence as well.

“I went to Israel right after high school, and a couple of years after that, I entered into the Henrietta Szold School of Nursing. I started in 1971. I graduated. I served in the Israeli army. I’m a retired officer in the Israeli army. I came back to the United States. It was meant to be only for a year but it turned out to be my lifetime,” Bazes-Bard said.

She became interested in health and humor when she worked at Columbia University.

“I developed a Just For Health program there, an employee health program for humor and healing. I learned a lot through working with the humor project out of Saratoga Springs, NY, where I learned how to bring puppets to life. They can become your best friend. I began incorporating it into my workplace and it always stuck with me,” Bazes-Bard said.

Though the end result of her mission is as yet unsure, one thing for Bazes-Bard is certain.

“For me, it’s going to be like memory lane,” said Bazes-Bard. “It’s been 30 years since I’ve been in the pediatric ward. I’m going to be walking down cobblestone streets that I walked for three years night and day. I’m going to be walking with my clown outfit on and I’m going to be so happy.”