Yeah the logline doesn’t seam to be working and am structuring the story now so your comments are very helpful.

Here is a bit of background and a sum of the story.

This story is inspired by many people in my life, who are either long term/terminal diseases sufferers or people who work with them.

In this story the clown doctor lost his own son to cancer many years before and ever since dedicates his time to making long term sickness suffering children laugh as much as possible.

He needed a flaw and I thought that the worst thing a clown doctor can be is naively sentimental a side effect of never letting go of the pain from losing his own son.

He is passionate and driven therefore also a hit with all kids but one, this one seams resistant to his shtick. The inciting incident needed to be something done to him so the boy approaches him because the boy wants to laugh and knows he is probably one of the very few that can help him.

Very true DPG about the medical help he provides the boy. Therefore when he finally figures out how to make the boy laugh he repeats the trick that worked, the boy’s symptoms are made less severe and he gets better over time. The clown doctor is filled with hope and comes back every day with a new variation on the trick that made him laugh delighted the boy is laughing and feeling better.

Until one day he walks into the ward with a new trick for the boy and finds himself standing in front of an empty bed. The boy died over night he breaks down and struggles to hide his tears from the other patients on the ward.

He then realizes that in order to help the other children, that are still alive, as a professional he can’t get attached. He needs to distinguish, more than anyone, the difference between false hope and medical reality.

Tried tightening up the logline but not sure it explains the above story. I think I may be a bit too close to the story so any comments or suggestions would be greatly appreciated:
When a naively sentimental clown doctor meets a depressed 8 yo cancer patient he must find a way to make him laugh before he dies and learns not to get attached if he is to help other children.