Harvard survey arts and humanities in medicine

  Quote of the week

"Arts& Humanities at Harvard Medical School  aims to promote the role of the humanities in medical education, clinical care and research. A recent survey of the Harvard Medical School Community assessed the level of interest in the role of art, literature, music and theatre in medical education and patient care. 
After obtaining IRB approval, the survey was sent out to 13,512 faculty, trainees and students. Preliminary student responses were presented at the Harvard Academy Medical Education Day and showed that 72 percent of students who responded participate in the arts and 69 percent would support a formal program to integrate the arts into the medical school curriculum."

From the article Finding the Art in Medicine, Harvard Medical School,  Feb. 22, 2013

Book by Martin Donohoe Explores Relationships Between Public Health and Social Justice

Saturday, March 9, 2013

Other books of note related to arts and humane medicine:

Public Health and Social Justice
by Martin Donohoe
Jossey Bass-Wiley, 2012

Martin T. Donohoe, MD, FACP is an adjunct associate professor in Community Health at Portland State University and  practices internal medicine, and is on the Social Justice Committee of Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the Board of Advisors for Oregon PSR.  Donohoe has published extensively about public health issues and social justice in journals and books and at the blog Public Health and Social Justice.  He has also been  a featured contributor to The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP, Issue 8, October, 2009,"Stories and Society Using Literature to Teach Medical Students about Public Health and Social Justice."

Endorsements for the book Public Health and Social Justice

" In this ambitious text, Dr. Martin Donohoe intertwines literature across disciplines and genres to demonstrate economic, political, and historical etiologies of diseases that are commonly—and fatally—misconstrued as purely biological in origin. Students and professionals will find this is a useful, accessible primer on the contentious social landscapes that distribute disease unequally within and across societies. Dr. Donohoe’s compilation unifies ostensibly distant corners of our broad discipline under the common pursuit of health as an achievable, non-negotiable human right. In this reader, Dr. Donohoe endeavors beyond analysis to impart his impassioned suggestions for moving closer to the vision of health equity to which he has dedicated his admirable career."
– Paul Farmer, MD, PhD, Kolokotrones University Professor and Chair, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard Medical School; and co-founder, Partners In Health
__

"This superb book is the best work yet concerning the relationships between public health and social justice. Martin Donohoe’s profound contributions to the field make him uniquely qualified as the book’s editor and as the author of several key chapters. Everyone concerned about justice in public health will find the book informative and inspirational."
– Howard Waitzkin, MD, PhD, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of New Mexico
__

“Social justice provides the passion that fuels public health. Martin Donohoe’s book gives public health professionals, researchers and advocates the essential knowledge they need to capture the energy that social justice brings to our enterprise.”
– Nicholas Freudenberg, DrPH, Distinguished Professor of Public Health at the City University of New York School of Public Health at Hunter College.
__

"I know of few people who have as passionate a commitment to such a broad range of social justice issues as does Martin Donohoe.  His personal concern for the human beings who suffer is always evident in his presentations at conferences, in his writing, and in the art with which he illustrates his points.  Martin’s chapters are not a theoretical view from afar but the perspective of a humanitarian practicing the art of personal medicine on a grand scale. The breadth of topics he has selected to include provide a strong overview of social justice in medicine and public health for readers new to the topic. For many long-time public health professionals, the book serves as a challenging reminder of the reasons they entered the profession. For all of us in public health, Martin’s book serves as a stimulus to stay true to our core mission: social justice."
– William Wiist, DHSc, MPH, MS, Senior Scientist and Head of Office of Health & Society Studies, Interdisciplinary Health Policy Institute, Northern Arizona University
__

"Martin Donohoe, MD is a renaissance man in the modern era with an amazing knowledge of the social determinants of health and the role of physician as advocate. This book is a tremendous contribution to the literature of
social justice and public health and only Dr. Donohoe’s passion for open source material via his website and his dedication to finding solutions to these problems could have ultimately brought this compendium together. This
book will be utilized in many fields because of its breadth and depth."
– Catherine Thomasson, MD, Executive Director, Physicians for Social Responsibility
__

“Finally, a book that wonderfully illustrates the connections between social justice and health that I can enthusiastically recommend to all health professionals who care about the fate of humanity, and to medical students who do not want to be the doctors overseeing our extinction.”
– Patch Adams, Gesundheit Institute
__

“A compelling and provocative collection of essays that provides an in-depth examination and critical analysis of the impact that a health system founded on principles of equity and equal opportunity can have on society’s well-being. This book will serve as an essential reference for students, teachers and practitioners in the health and human services who are committed to social responsibility.”
– Shafik Dharamsi, PhD, Faculty of Medicine and Liu Institute for Global Issues, Global Health Network, University of British Columbia

Chapter  Headings:

PART I 
Human Rights, Social Justice, Economics, Poverty, and Health Care

PART Two  
Special Populations

PART Three  
Women's Health

PART Four    
Obesity, Tobacco, and Suicide by Firearms: The Modern Epidemics

PART Five  
Food: Safety, Security, and Disease

 PART Six 
Environmental Health

 PART Seven 
War and Violence

 PART Eight  
Corporations and Public Health

 PART Nine
 Achieving Social Justice in Health Care Through Education and Activism



For more information and a full table of contents visit the Public Health and  Social Justice website  
  Order the book at http://www.josseybass.com/WileyCDA/WileyTitle/productCd-111808814X.html

Creative Arts in Medical Education and Practice Upcoming Webinar AMSA

Press Release, January 4, 2013

Cheryl L. McLean, Publisher of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, IJCAIP has been invited to facilitate an upcoming webinar in March for The American Medical Student Association, Medical Humanities Scholars’ Program. The program draws together physicians, humanists, scholars and others to lead student sessions and open up discussion around the practice of medicine and integration of science and humanities and to explore how  the humanities enrich and lend perspective to the medical field.  

The American Medical Student Association (AMSA) founded in 1950,  is based in Washington and is the largest independent association of physicians in training in the United States.  Uniquely student governed,  AMSA  has a membership of 68,000 from across The United States.  Among the key goals of the AMSA are to advocate for quality and affordable health care for all, equality in global health and enriching medicine through diversity.

In a recent interview for the upcoming  book, "Creative Arts in Humane Medicine" Aliye Runyan M.D.,  Education and Research Fellow, American Medical Student Association,  reported The AMSA has a history of leadership advocating for the humanities in medical education.  Just one example is The Medical Humanities Scholars' Program.   "The Medical Humanities Scholars' Program," reports Runyan,  "exposes students to lead faculty in narrative medicine, humanities and the arts as they explore reflective capacity, communication, self care and the art of listening to their patients' stories."   Cheryl McLean will participate March 21, 2013 as a guest facilitator for the AMSA Medical Humanities Scholars' Program, Perceptions of Physicians in Literature and the Arts: Arts Alive and Thriving in Medical Education.

The theme for this year’s  AMSA, Medical Humanities Scholars' program is “Perceptions of Physicians in Literature and the Arts”.  Ms. McLean will lead one of the  sessions in the webinar course  around  the growing diversity and vitality of the creative arts in medicine, education  research and practice.  This webinar will also be available for access at the IJCAIP Journal website at http://www.ijcaip.com.  She is editor of the upcoming book, “Creative Arts in Humane Medicine” to be published by Brush Education for release in 2013. 

Professor Yale School of Medicine Advocates for a Global Ethic Through Arts and Aesthetics

  This article was  published at the International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice blog, Arts Crossing Borders.   Dr. Lee was also a contributor to the book, Creative Arts in Humane Medicine, Editor C.L. McLean, publisher Brush Education (dist. University of Toronto Press)

The Critical Role of the Arts in Global Governance

 IJCAIP blog Arts Crossing Borders/Guest Post

by Bandy X Lee, Assistant Clinical Professor of Psychiatry,

Yale School of Medicine

Building a Global Ethic through Aesthetics

In Ancient China, apart from hereditary power, there were scholar officials who determined the affairs of the state.  These officials were in fact artists, theoretically from any background or social status, who won competitions in poetry, calligraphy, and painting.  Of course, learned philosophy came through in their artwork, but the purpose was to select the greatest humanists, who were assumed to have the greatest wisdom and therefore an ability to make important governing decisions.  This is the kind of civilization that has become legend, one that we can only imagine in our day.

Similarly in Ancient Africa, political systems often consisted of circles of tribal members, divided by age group and gender, which would hold discussions, over and over, until a problem reached its resolution.  Other than that of the chief, political appointments were rare and arose more out of necessity of situation.  This maintained order in a widely spread, decentralized system, kept solutions at a very human (and humanistic) level, and probably prevented any individual or entity from taking over, as has occurred post-Western influence.

As we emerge from some political storms in the U.S. and the rest of the world (wherein Europe went through twelve leadership changes over the past two years), the differences between  our social and political structures come  to light.  Our system requires such specialized knowledge to maneuver, that it seems the greater this knowledge, the less room there will be for a true understanding of human affairs, not to mention human solutions.  A result is that rampant immorality and injustice are permitted to reign without regard to human and societal casualty—the kind that any scholar official or tribal member would have long recognized as antithetical to the purpose of government.

Instead, our system allows us to deny almost any problem, some of terrifying proportions: global climate change, destruction of the planet, erosion of democracy, depletion of social safety nets, plunder of the poor, and illegal wars, to name just a few.  We are told that the source of our problems is complex and mysterious, and the solutions beyond the reach of an average citizen.  Meanwhile, we are the ones tightening our belts in a nation that possesses half the world’s wealth, and we on the ground are the ones to feel, at a visceral level, the consequences of decisions that we did not make.

If Plato called for philosophers to become rulers for global decision-making to carry thoughtfulness, we might call upon practitioners of creativity for ethical bearing.  While education empowers populations by alerting them to ways in which oppression can occur, the arts do so by centering the heart such that one will refuse to accept injustice or untruth (the role of aesthetics in ethics is not new[1]).  

"....what education achieves cognitively, art does emotionally—and with most problems facing us now originating in humans, we see that we are in great need of collective emotional healing.  In this context, it does not help that we marginalize artists from “Bohemia” to misery—a distant cry from the position of scholar official—for the suffering of artists often foreshadows the suffering of a whole civilization."

Thus, in developing a proper perspective for global ethics, those in the creative fields may have a crucial role to play.  Few professions take on the highest and ultimate of human expression and are sensitive to any curtailing of human thriving (Henry James, for instance, suffered with a prescience of the Second World War while everyone was rejoicing the end of the First and politicians were emitting sighs of relief).  Their sensitivity can become a guide for ethical global governance.  Adherence to basic principles, for example, is how artists maintain coherence in their work, unlike scientists, who take a more methodological approach of fragmenting the whole so that the parts can be scrutinized more carefully (which are then added together to reconstruct the whole; science and other fields, at their best, can be an art, as is Einstein’s physics or Osler’s medicine).  A more artistic approach fosters the development of judgment and wisdom, by staying close to the human experience and keeping sight of the whole—and readily varying method according to overall need.

The artistic approach, then, might lead to the recognition of principles over rules, like the African governing circles that brought no concrete formula other than to answer a specific question.  Amid changing conditions, keeping with original purpose can allow us not to lose sight of the basic principles that every healthy society seeks (and which keep societies healthy): harmony, equity, justice, and peace.  We might then work toward true prosperity rather than an ideology of Capitalism or global domination.  We might actually solve problems and not let rules and procedure trump purpose, which then require a heaping of more laws and regulations upon them to try to correct, with ineffectual results.  Retaining a firm vision, far from being impractical, can facilitate expedient and ethical governance.  Restoring artists and creative individuals to a role in global governance, far from being unthinkable, may bring back the human sensitivity that was emblematic of the scholar officials and might perhaps be a step toward restoring our society into a higher, healthier civilization.

Bandy X. Lee, MD, MDiv

Assistant Clinical Professor

Law and Psychiatry Division

Yale University

We thank Dr. Lee for this important contribution to our IJCAIP blog, "Arts Crossing Borders".  Dr. Bandy Lee is a violence studies specialist.  She trained as a psychiatrist at Yale and Harvard Universities and focused on public-sector work as chief resident and was active in  anthropological research in East Africa as a fellow of the National Institute of Mental Health.  In addition, she worked in several maximum-security prisons throughout the United States, consulted with governments in Ireland and France, and helped to set up violence prevention programs both in the U.S. and abroad.  She is currently Assistant Clinical Professor, Law and Psychiatry Division, Yale University and teaches students representing political asylum seekers through Yale Law School.  She also served as Director of Research for the Center for the Study of Violence, as consultant to the World Health Organization, and as speaker to the World Economic Forum.  Her interests are in public health approaches and transdisciplinary research/discourse, and she organizes an annual colloquium series called
'Making Sense,' to bring together the arts, the sciences, and the practical disciplines.
 

---

[1] Cf. Scarry, Elaine. On Beauty and Being Just.  Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999.

Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Research: A Credo

A Credo for The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Research

by Cheryl McLean

as delivered in the keynote address, Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Research,

A Pond of Interdisciplinary Opportunity, 

at the Arts Based Research Network Symposium, 

Acadia University, Wolfville, N.S.,

October 5, 2012.

Photos from book Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change,  Detselig Temeron Press

I dream for the creative arts in interdisciplinary research a credo. I believe we will continue to share our own lives, our experiences for witness and the lives and experiences of others, and that we will embody our stories without shame, take pride in our identities and unique histories, teach through our sufferings and inspire through our celebrations.  We will have the freedom to speak without fear, embody and re-illuminate the human story, stage human vulnerability, foster citizenship and give voice to the silenced, the oppressed and the marginalized whether from a stage, an art gallery, around a kitchen table, a study circle or from the streets of our inner cities.

We will continue to support one another and build our research capital, keep telling the stories of our work, communicate our scholarship outside the academy and across disciplines in a multitude of creative and accessible ways to the broadest possible audiences.

We will endeavour to meet often and in person around the most critical needs facing our communities at home and around the world and offer creative and life giving ideas for healthy, clean and safe environments while creating spaces for  human expression and connection that  foster acceptance and acknowledge people as human beings of value. 

  

I believe through the creative arts in interdisciplinary research and practice we can create opportunities and communities for change and together accomplish the extraordinary.

Cheryl McLean is Executive Editor and Publisher of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP and  Editor of the books "Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Research, Inquiries for Hope and Change" and "Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change", Detselig Temeron Press, 2010, 2011 and "Creative Arts in Humane Medicine", Brush Education Inc. (for release 2013).

American Medical Students' Association Humanities Institute

 

AMSA Humanities Institute

February 1-3, 2013
Sterling, VA (AMSA National Office)

Sponsored by Brown University Program in Arts and Medical Humanities, Department of Emergency Medicine

Application Deadline: December 1, 2012

The Humanities Institute is designed for students who appreciate the power of using creative expression to bear witness to their patients and their own experiences in medicine. This institute incorporates narrative medicine, creative writing workshops and the arts, along with hands-on sessions that explore topics of student wellness and avoiding burnout. Sessions are led by guest faculty physicians, authors, and wellness experts.
Sample sessions may include the following topics:

• Writing for Social Justice
• Medical Representation in Film, Photography & the Arts
• Honing Interviewing Skills through Narrative
• The Physician-Poet
• Writing for Wellness
• Professionalism & Ethics in Writing
• Medical Journalism
• One-on-One Writing Meetings with guest authors
• Healers' Voices: Open Mic Night
• Well Student Workshops: yoga, nutrition, managing stress, & more!

The AMSA Humanities Institute is an intensive experience with both didactic and experiential learning components. It combines student-led and field expert-led sessions. AMSA institutes are open to pre-medical, medical, resident, and allied health members. The AMSA Academy is a training ground for physician leaders, established by and for students. The Academy strives to empower medical and premedical students to effect change in medicine.

For more information about the AMSA Humanities Institute:
http://www.amsa.org/AMSA/Homepage/EducationCareerDevelopment/AMSAAcademy/MHI.aspx

Creative Arts in Medical Education and Health Fostering Humane Medicine

 Arts Alive and Thriving in Medical Education

Cheryl L. McLean, 

Publisher,International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice

Among the fundamental principles of humanistic medicine or values based medicine are open communication, mutual respect and relationship centred care. There is a growing trend toward integrating the arts in medical education and programming to help address these humanistic needs.

"In the US, a recent study found that over half of all US medical schools involved the arts in learning activities (Rodenhauser, Strickland, & Gambala,2004)  to help  foster student well-being, enhance teaching and learning, and improve clinical and relational skills, for example, observation and diagnostic skills, reflection and insight." ( Excerpt from the article by Pamela Brett-MacLean Ph.D. Use of the Arts in Medical and Health Professional Education, University of Alberta Health Sciences Journal • September 2007 • Volume 4 • Issue 1)
 
In Canada, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Humanities in Medicine, offers five core initiatives: History of Medicine; Narrative Medicine (oral storytelling film, mass media, and literature); Music; Spirituality; and Visual Arts.  The Arts and Humanities in Health and Medicine Program at the University of Alberta was launched in May 2006. The program is directed to engendering a balance of scientific knowledge and compassionate care with a mission statement that formally acknowledges “the explicit recognition within the Faculty that clinical practice is both an art and a science.” 
 
At the University of Toronto, the Undergraduate Medical Education (UME) Program has begun a systematic integration of different types of narrative into the curriculum with a new Companion Curriculum which offers support to the empathic or “moral imagination”, and allows students to consider the internal experiences of patients,  families, other students and healthcare professional (see Health, Arts and Humanities Programme, University of Toronto, http://health-humanities.com/ )
 
Programs integrating the arts and humanities in medical education continue to flourish and gain momentum with leading medical schools and universities offering programming such as Stanford School of Medicine, Arts, Humanities and Medicine, established to promote creative and scholarly work at the intersections between the arts, humanities and medicine.   At Yale School of Medicine, The Yale Medical Humanities and the Arts Council is committed to fostering the use of the humanities, social sciences, and the arts as a lens for examining issues in health, medicine, and healing.  Arts& Humanities at Harvard Medical School  aims to promote the role of the humanities in medical education, clinical care and research. A recent survey of the Harvard Medical School Community assessed the level of interest in the role of art, literature, music and theatre in medical education and patient care. After obtaining IRB approval, the survey was sent out to 13,512 faculty, trainees and students. Preliminary student responses were presented at the Harvard Academy Medical Education Day and showed that 72 percent of students who responded participate in the arts and 69 percent would support a formal program to integrate the arts into the medical school curriculum."

 The Centre for Medical Humanities at Durham U.K. offers a  research programme organized around five research clusters,  Imagination and Creativity; Practice and Practitioner; Policy Politics Collective; Transfiguring and Mind Body Affect.
 
The arts can offer creative opportunities for learning and a place for self expression and healing. A leader in the field of Narrative Medicine, Dr. Rita Charon, Professor of Clinical Medicine and Director of the Program in Narrative Medicine at Columbia University has long advocated for the use of narrative in medical education to honour stories of illness. Dr. Arthur Frank, Professor of Sociology, University of Calgary, and author of “The Wounded Storyteller, Body, Illness and Ethics”, writes about the meaningful uses of storytelling for those experiencing illness, “The personal issue of telling stories about illness is to give voice to the body, so the changed body can become once again familiar in these stories.”

The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP Published by  Cheryl L. McLean is an international  open access journal with a mission  to publish and  disseminate worldwide, quality information, research and knowledge about the creative arts in interdisciplinary research and  practice.  The web based open access academic journal  is accessible to researchers, educators and students in over 15,000 libraries in 60 countries around the world including developing nations and has published several textbooks, among them the upcoming text book   Creative Arts in Humane Medicine edited by McLean with publisher Brush Education, a provocative  new text for medical educators developed in response to the growing need for resources in the arts and medicine.  The edited volume explores the field internationally featuring  illustrative examples of the arts in action in medical education and practice. 

The IJCAIP  journal frequently publishes peer reviewed research and articles featuring leaders active in  the arts and medicine. In the issue,  "Physicians Speak Out About Arts in Medicine", physicians were offered the opportunity to voice their stories and share examples of how they use the arts in medical education. The article “Stories and Society, Using Literature to Teach Medical Students About Public Health and Social Justice,” was contributed by Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP, Adjunct Associate Professor, School of Community Health, Portland State University and Senior Physician of Internal Medicine at The Kaiser Sunnyside Medical Centre.  Donohoe offered an argument for “enhancing public health education of medical students through the use of literature with the goal of creating activist physicians knowledgeable about, and eager to confront, the social, economic and cultural contributions to illness”.  

In the same issue Dr. Maureen Rappaport reported on the creative writing course she teaches as an elective to fourth year medical students at McGill University, a course that provides an important place for students to express feelings through narratives and poetry.  

Physician and Educator Dr. Pippa Hall at The University of Ottawa, has been a palliative care physician for over ten years integrating arts into learning activities for pre-licensure students and in post graduate programs as well as in continuing professional development activities in nursing and spiritual care. She explained how she found the arts in many forms provided opportunities for learning while offering new insights into the human condition. 

 The International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice IJCAIP also explored the exciting potential for other innovative and creative technologies incorporated into teaching and medical education. Kim Bullock, MD, family medicine and emergency room physician, and Director of the Community Health Division and Assistant Director of Service Learning in the Department of Family Medicine at Georgetown University, Medical Centre, Washington reported she believes digital storytelling in medical education has the potential to “link the social, environmental, and historical issues that influence health and illness through graphics”. “What emerges,” she writes, “are voices from the community that bear witness to issues that influence health including problems related to the environment, housing, public safety violence, inequities ..”

There are other international events that demonstrate growing support and advocacy for educational programming  at the intersections of the arts and  medicine.  The AMSA (American Medical Students' Association)  Academy has been established by and for students, a training ground for physician leaders empowering medical students to affect change in medicine.  AMSA has over 150 chapters in medical schools across the country and an estimated  350 pre-med chapters. This translates into more than 68,000 members, including medical and premedical students, residents and practicing physicians.   In a recent interview for the upcoming  book, "Creative Arts in Humane Medicine" Aliye Runyan M.D.,  Education and Research Fellow, American Medical Student Association,  reported The AMSA has a history of leadership advocating for the humanities in medical education.  Just one example is The Medical Humanities Scholars' Program.   "The Medical Humanities Scholars' Program," reports Runyan, "exposes students to lead faculty in narrative medicine, humanities and the arts as they explore reflective capacity, communication, self care and the art of listening to their patients' stories. Cheryl McLean will be a guest facilitator for the upcoming AMSA webinar, March 21,  "Arts Alive and Thriving in Medical Education", part of the AMSA Medical Humanities Scholars' "Perceptions of Physicians in Literature and the Arts" series.

  Generally speaking many of  these trends in programming  reflect a renewed interest in the arts and medicine as it relates to human communication.

  According to a recent article in Family Medicine, "the Association of American Medical Colleges, the US Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the Committee on Accreditation of Canadian Medical Schools, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education have called for medical educators to carefully define, teach, and evaluate communications skills for physicians in training." (Haq, Steele, Marchand, Seibert, Brody, Family Medicine,Vol. 36)

 

With new emphasis on communication, mutual respect and relationship building,  be it interprofessionally or between physicians and patients the upcoming book  Creative Arts in Humane Medicine will be a topical resource for  educators in the Medical Humanities, Public Health, Health Promotion, Social Work and the Social Services providing helpful examples for educators, students and others interested in using the arts in education to help contribute toward a more caring and empathic approach to medicine and practice. 

Cheryl L. McLean, Editor