GOSH Arts and the Foundling Museum

1 Feb 2017, 4:13 p.m.

The Fantasy Fortune Tellers: Unidentified person drawing and writing messages on cards by patients beside, Feb 2017

Each year GOSH Arts and the Foundling Museum co-lead two creative projects at Great Ormond Street Hospital (GOSH), culminating in displays at the Museum’s Introductory Gallery. In July 2016 artist Davina Drummond worked with families on Foxand Robin Wards on Take a Joke, a project that playfully explored the role of laughter and humour in the hospital environment and its potential to improve wellbeing.

Through the process of developing their own medical jokes and writing them onto their isolation windows and hospital-like bedding, children and families explored and shared their experiences of bone marrow transplant treatment and being in isolation with each other and  with the staff on the ward .

#JokeMachine

What did the banana say to the doctor?I am not peeling very well!” “What do eating too many marshmallows and chemo have in common? They both make you sick!” “Why did the nurse tiptoe past the drug store? Because he didn’t want to wake up the sleeping tablets”

In November and December 2016, Davina worked with families on Bear ward to explore their hopes and dreams for the future, using fun and historical ways to create fantasy fortunes including making paper fortune tellers, fortune teller fish and spinning fortune wheels!

The Fantasy Fortune Tellers display is open to the public at the Foundling Museum until March 2017.

Research internships: building a more inclusive pipeline into clinical academia

Through our Research Hospital Internship programme, the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre (BRC) is enabling healthcare professionals from diverse backgrounds to take their first steps into research.

Working together to transform research

Our Highlight Report shines a spotlight on some of our brightest and best work in 2025-26. Our Impact report brings together a series of case studies and reflections that showcase the breadth and depth of PPIE across our organisation.

UK-wide excellence in paediatrics

Through the Paediatric Excellence Initiative, the NIHR GOSH Biomedical Research Centre is building a connected, collaborative UK-wide system to accelerate paediatric research.

Families and researchers come together for BPAN Family Day

Families affected by BPAN came together with clinicians and researchers at GOSH