The Arts-in Medicine program at the University of New Mexico (UNM) is an innovative melding of medicine and creative arts.
The Arts-in-Medicine program had its origins in October 1999 with an exhibition featuring the art and poetry of twelve Albuquerque artists and a combined-media performance entitled Divining the Tapestry: Stories of Living and Dying Well.
Both the exhibition and the performance were created by faculty and students from UNM College of Fine Arts, as well as several interested members of the community (cast and production staff of approximately 75 people) and presented simultaneously at the South Broadway Cultural Center to an audience of approximately 800 people.
Divining the Tapestry was based on the recorded life-review interviews of Sandia Hospice patients over a period of two years. A conference version of Divining the Tapestry: Stories of Living and Dying Well was performed at seven international, national, and regional medical conferences between 1999 and 2002. In the spring of 2002 the Arts-in-Medicine program expanded to include patients, their families, and medical professionals at the University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center as well as at Sandia Hospice Pavilion.
New Mexico Arts (a division of the Office of Cultural Affairs and the National Endowment for the Arts) has been supporting the program from its inception. University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center as well as UNM’s College of Fine Arts further support the program. Currently Arts-in-Medicine services are offered throughout UNM Health Sciences Center facilities: the primary hospital, the psychiatric center, the cancer center, and the hospice.
The mission of the program is to help transform the medical environment and expidite the healing process by facilitating transformative, educational and rejuvenating artistic and creative encounters for patients, their families and professional caregivers throughout UNM Hospitals and the community-at-large.
The program involves many physicians, nurses, healthcare professionals, artists, and people from the community-at-large. The program is divided about half and half in its efforts to support patients/families and healthcare professionals, with goals as outlined below.
One-on-one with patients, their families, and medical professionals:
* To encourage participants to stop, examine, and transform the quality of their lives;
* To provide opportunities to express painful and/or suppressed feelings;
* To co-create new perspectives on and increased meaning in life;
* To facilitate positive experiences and heightened self-esteem;
* To stimulate spiritual expression and;
* To relieve pain, discomfort, anxiety, restlessness, respiratory difficulties, insomnia, isolation, depression, withdrawal, loss of speech, grief, and anticipatory grief.
For the community-at-large:
* To expand awareness and stimulate dialog regarding the nature of health and healthcare, death and dying;
* To contribute to the UNM Health Science Center’s (UNMHSC) role as an international leader and innovator in medical education;
* To provide new and meaningful opportunities for artists to contribute to society;
* To recognize and celebrate the cultural diversity of the community;
* To provide multiple opportunities for collaboration between community members and the academy;
* To build collegial and supportive relationships among faculty, students, and staff members of the UNMHSC community and;
* To build bridges between the main campus and the health science campus.
Information and calendars are available at the links below:
http://artsinmedicine.unm.edu/calendar.htm
http://artsinmedicine.unm.edu/index.html
