Meet Dr Scribble! – celebrating 20 years of Giggle Doctors at Sheffield Children’s

Dr Scribble – and I love to draw! Did you know I have the world’s biggest collection of colouring pens? My house is made out of pencils, and I made my hat out of tape!

I began my training in 2018 – it usually it takes two years of a lot of training to become a Giggle Doctor, but the COVID pandemic meant that it took even longer!

Every Giggle Doctor has their own name, character and specially designed coat. For me, I started with a massive brainstorm based on all the things I love doing most with children: drawing, making things, juggling…

Cartoons are a big passion for me, I love them, all, and when I think about my Giggle Doctor character/style, I often think about it as being a cartoon. They have this larger than life, exaggerated, funny or fun vibe that I’m trying to put across. Eventually I settled on the idea of Dr Scribble as I like the idea of walking into a hospital room and being like a cartoon character presence for the children. My favourite part of my Giggle Doctor coat is the picture frame pocket I have, as children love getting to add their own drawings to my coat.

https://theodora.co.uk/news/the-making-of-dr-scribble/

I thought it would be such a fun job! It aligned with the work I was already doing and offered a chance to work in a healthcare or hospital environment. Being able to be there and help families in what can be very difficult time means so much to me.

Every child I visit has a different style of playing or communicating, and I follow their lead as to how our interaction will go. It takes a lot of improvisation, but what makes it so fun as no visit with a child is ever the same!

Making your costume silly enough!

Kids love the weird doodles I’m covered in, some of them are rhyming drawings, so a ghost eating toast or a fox in socks, so it’s fun to say, and there’s alliteration too, a shoulder spider, a bunny boat. They all have fun parts. I have a drawing of a crocodile, and I often make a crocodile balloon for people. My pen pot pocket is full of pens and looks great, kids always notice it and I think it sets the scene that I love drawing really well for them.

Funny, playful …and silly

People might not know there are Giggle Doctors ALL OVER the country and we often travel to hospitals in different areas to work with each other make sure as many kids as possible get a Giggle Doctor visit.

For two wonderful years!

First, we arrive and collecting our passes before getting into costume and ready for the day. We then check in on the wards with staff and play team members. Once we’ve done that, we start heading round the list of rooms we are able to visit. After making our way around wards we often visit waiting rooms and more. Then we head back to get changed again and we’re all done!

Being able to help break the monotony of the day for families helps a lot. These are a few of the interactions that stand out for me as being really great moments, where it isn’t just some play or jokes or fun, it’s like the whole mood of the space is lifted and you can feel it just be great for everyone. It’s a special and magical visit that happened which we hope will help create many happy memories for children. It is also such a fun surprise, sometimes families haven’t met us before and we have parents watching in wonder as their children are laughing and playing with us – sometimes it is the first time their child has smiled or laughed in days.

A few times I remember staff like nurses, cleaners, and porters stopping by the door or ward and watching, it’s like everyone gets the ripple effect of the fun too!

Being a Giggle Doctor isn’t always all fun and games, I remember the first time was meeting all of the staff, particularly the Play Team that we work closely with, and learning our way around. Visiting big children’s hospitals like Sheffield Children’s can be daunting the first time – I had to make sure I wasn’t going to get lost!

Play is so important to children, in any and all environments. It’s their everything, and a hospital will be no different. Play helps children express themselves, forget about their worries temporarily, connect and have fun with us as Giggle Doctors, but with their family too! We encourage parents and siblings to join in the fun, and sometimes even other children and families on the wards join in too.

It’s happened many times that after we visit, families on the ward who hadn’t really spoken to each other were all laughing and chatting together by the time we left.

We help transform children’s experience of hospital and help their healing process. As we all know hospitals can feel like a scary place to be with loud machines and treatments, but when we come to visit them, it is all about them being a kid, whether that’s playing, drawing, magic, or singing – once we were with a child and we used our imagination to create a magical button that would make everyone’s underpants explode!

We help create positive memories, which supports children’s wellbeing, and help equip them emotionally to face challenges or future hospital stays.

Fun!

Getting to celebrate with lots of other Giggle Doctors on the wards, the Play Team and the hospital staff we see during our rounds. And of course, a lot of dancing and making music

Parties with lots of balloons and decorations with a big cake to share with everyone!

The winning lottery numbers!

AI generated jokes delivered by robots.