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FEATURE
The Role of ARt in INTEGRATIVE Medicine
By
Naj Wikoff, President, the Society for the Arts in Healthcare
The
value of the arts as part of an integrative approach to medicine is
gaining some remarkable traction. Duke Medical Center researcher Dr.
Mitchell Krucoff, in a national trial to determine the effects of
prayer on patients undergoing heart angioplasty or catheterization,
discovered that patients had death rates 30 percent lower than any
other patients when music was combined with prayer (over those who
received a music intervention, received standard care or, unbeknownst
to them, were prayed for).
At a
time when hospital executives are faced with severe economic
challenges caused by declines in investment, reimbursement and
research dollars, staffing shortages, increases in the costs of
medicine, medical technologies and insurance premiums, and aging
facilities, it may seem to be a surprising time and climate for a
growth in the arts. Yet support for the arts is solid.
A
recent survey of hospitals across the nation, conducted by the Society
for the Arts in Healthcare and Americans for the Arts, in cooperation
with the Joint
Commission on
Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations,
revealed that over half of the hospitals have arts programs. While no
surprise that the vast majority of the programs are targeted for
patients (96%), 56% of the activities are also intended to serve
patient families and 55% to serve hospital staff. For patients, the
primary reason for the arts program (78.2%) is to be a part of their
mental and emotional recovery.
“As
wonderful as my doctor is and the nursing staff, it was the arts
programs that brought me back to who I am. It amazes me that it’s not
everywhere – you just can’t be about blood and catheters and cell
counts,” said a Lombardi Center cancer patient quoted in a recent
Washington Post article (The Art of Healing, August 17, 2004).
The
arts are being used to support healing in a variety of ways.
At Jacobi Medical
Center in the Bronx, children getting ready for surgery are provided
art materials and are encouraged to draw their feelings about their
upcoming operation as a means of reducing their pre-operative
anxiety. With watercolors, crayons and colored pencils, they express
emotions that are often hard to put into words and, in so doing, are
taken away from the noise and tension to a quieter place. At Great
Camp Sagamore, near the hamlet of Raquette Lake, NY, each fall, women
living with cancer and other chronic diseases, come together to use a
combination of nature, fellowship and the arts to help them learn how
to live with their diseases and regain control of their lives. At the
Dartmouth Medical School, nearly 160 handmade diamond-shaped tiles
will soon grace the walls of a stairwell as part of a student led
initiative to beautify their learning environment – an effort that has
already resulted in a new color scheme for classrooms and the creation
of four large murals, created by medical students, that depict
significant episodes in the history of the medical school.
At
the Maine Youth Center in Portland, African tribal masks are being
used as a teaching tool to help young women understand destructive
patterns that can be passed on unknowingly from generation to
generation. The young women also learn to break the pattern by taking
responsibility for their own actions. The Mask Project is but one of
several innovative programs sponsored by the Maine Humanities Council
to use the humanities to support healing. Mid-Coast Health, a
hospital in Brunswick, ME, works with local artists to “provide
symbols, spaces, and surroundings that join body and spirit, science
and healing” as a critical part of their mission to create a healing
environment. The hospital’s commitment to the arts is readily apparent
to all with the welcoming mural, The Four Quartets by Mark Wthli, Kyle
Durrie and Cassie Jones. The mural consists of four 10 x 10 foot
panels depicting the natural beauty of Maine’s four seasons.
In
hospitals, hospices, clinics, medical schools, after schools programs,
and doctors’ offices, and by state health agencies, the arts and
humanities are increasingly being used to support wellness and foster
healing. The arts and humanities are being used to help sensitize
future doctors to the cultural traditions of our ever diversifying
society, and to help break stereotypes about age, race and people
living with emotional and physical challenges.
Leading, supporting and revealing the growth of the arts and
humanities is the Society for the Arts in Healthcare. Based in
Washington, DC and founded in 1989, the Society hosts an annual
international conference, next held in Edmonton, Canada in June 2005,
regional conferences and special symposiums, such as its 2002
partnership with the National Endowment for the Arts to develop a plan
to increase the role of the arts in healthcare. The JCAHO survey, a
plan to develop a baseline on the level of arts and humanities
activities in hospitals, was an outcome of that symposium. The
Society provides awards to recognize best practices (Blair Sadler
Award) and significant contributions to the field (Janice Palmer
Award), offers free consultants (SAHCS) sponsored by the NEA to help
health organizations establish or enhance arts in healthcare
activities in partnership with local arts agencies, and makes funding
available through administering the annual Johnson & Johnson
Foundation arts in healthcare grants (deadline in August).
The
Society’s over 1,100 members include artists, arts therapists,
doctors, nurses, chaplains, hospital and arts administrators, and
healthcare institutions. For many joining the Society is a means of
connecting with others in the field, as well as participating in or
sharing their skills in hands-on training workshops, seminars, and
retreats. In October, the Society joined with Mass General Hospital,
Boston College Graduate School of Social Work, Tufts University
College, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council to present a day-long
series of presentations organized by a team of Society members led by
local arts advocate Peggy Coonley.
Indeed, Society members are engaged in a wide array of initiatives to
promote the arts in healing. Sandra Bertman, Director, Programs of
Medical Humanities, Boston College Graduate School of Social Work and
the Rev. Sally Bailey, serve as co-chairs of the Work Group on the
Arts and Humanities of the International Work Group on Death, Dying
and Bereavement. In their paper on the Arts and Humanities in
Healthcare and Education they write, “We acknowledge that the practice
of medicine for many years has been “long on science and short on
art.” With the birth of modern hospice and palliative medicine
movements, we have seen the consciousness rise as many persons in
medicine and healthcare are seeking to restore “the art.” Likewise,
the consciousness has been rising in the past twenty-five years as
more and more artists have sought to be closer to the amelioration of
suffering and to be channels of healing while creating environments
that foster health and wellness.”
In
many ways the ability of the arts to provide people of all backgrounds
a common language, to focus on the individual and to create community,
as well as the sustainability of the arts – their ability to use
words, movement, colors, sound and the imagination to transform or
celebrate a space or moment – all confirm that the arts are a
foundation – indeed possibly a keystone – of integrative medicine.
For
more information, visit
www.theSAH.org or contact:
The
Society for the Arts in Healthcare
2437
15th Street, NW
Washington, DC 20009
202-299-9770
mail@theSAH.org
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