Arts In Medicine

Arts in Medicine is a consulting and development group for new program initiatives. Caty Carlin,

director, is an artist and consultant for bridging the arts to organizations and institutions who

share the vision of the arts as a healing technology. Caty may be contacted for presentations and

events related to new arts in medicine initiatives at: caty@artsinmedicine.info.

In 2008, I was participating at an art show in Baltimore, MD, and at that show, there were

4 different people who happened by and told me about a group that was bridging the arts with

healthcare in different ways. The first woman told me that the Society for Arts in Healthcare was

a group who had artists, and architects, and physicians and patients who were collaborating on

healing environments, and actually creating art within hospital settings. I was interested, and

became even more interested when a Pediatrician came into my booth the same day, and said,

you really need to be in touch with this new group that is collectively merging the arts with medicine.

He, too, offered the SAH as a resource for information about what is happening in the world of arts

in medicine.

I would encourage anyone who is interested in arts in healthcare to JOIN NOW! It is an excellent

organization, and includes physicians, hospital administrators, dancers, artists, teachers, nurses,

and patients. If you are a student, there are student membership fees as well as professional fees for

joining, and believe me, this outfit has a lot of SUBSTANCE, with a conference each year highlighting

both pioneers in the world of arts in healthcare, as well as veterans that are guiding the paradigm forward.

Listen to a sample of the amazing music created by the “Purple Songs Can Fly” patients at the University of Texas Children’s Cancer Hospital.

Copy and paste the link below in your browser to listen:

http://www.purplesongscanfly.org/music.html

In 2009, the field of Arts in Healthcare was surveyed extensively

across the United States. In the State of the field report,published

by the Society for the Arts in Healthcare, it was determined that

over 45% of the healthcare institutions acrossthe United States had

some form of arts programming. This includes a variety of diverse

programming from art on the wall,to programs where professional

artists are employed to work with patients at the bedside in hospitals.

What is most interesting,is that each unique program has its own identity

and grows out of the environment, culture and community that it serves.

As an example, one of my favorite programs is the Children’s Hospital in Houston,

where they have a recording studio on the Children’s floor where children come in

for their treatment, and while they are waiting, they write, record and produce a

song that they take home on a CD. This is a professional sound studio, created by a

musician and composer named Anita Kruse, who was an artist in residence in their arts

in medicine program. The picture above is the founder, and group of children participants

in the program. Carol Herron is the Arts in Medicine Program Director at the Hospital. Check out

“purple songs can fly” .http://www.purplesongscanfly.org/photos.html to see this

wonderful program, and listen to the songs that some of the children have created.

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