If it's Tuesday, don't forget your tutu at Joe DiMaggio Children's Hospital. Colorful skirts made of tulle and decorated with polka dots and fancy bows are de rigueur every Tuesday for patients and staff alike at the Hollywood, Fla., institution.
It began one morning last summer, when Tony Smith slipped a multicolored tutu over his scrubs in the pre-op ward to grant the wish of a young patient heading to surgery.
A photo of the tutu-clad Smith quickly became a hit online, and within weeks, Tutu Tuesday was born.
“That day, it was all about making a patient feel comfortable. Having me put on the tutu made her feel better,” Smith told the Associated Press. The operating room assistant, who has worked at the hospital for almost five years, said, “I never knew I would have that much impact.”
Once employees saw the shot, they started asking Lotsy Dotsy—resident clown and unofficial keeper of the tutu—for their own frilly skirts to wear. Department by department, hospital staff adopted Tutu Tuesday.
On Tutu Tuesday, smiles are contagious.
Inside the hospital, tutus are everywhere. Doctors, nurses, technicians and receptionists don the frilly skirts as they tend to patients. Even Nutmeg, the in-house therapy dog, has a specially designed pink tutu. Hospital administrators also play along, wearing tutus over their business suits.
Smith said he could have never imagined that such a simple act would catch on.
“It's for the patients,” Smith said. “Just seeing you in a tutu brightens their day, and it can keep them from thinking about what's really going on.”
