In December of last year, we formed a new partnership with the Mayo Clinic and its Humanities in Medicine department to provide art at the bedside. A service was launched which allows patients to call and request a visit from an artist. Art with a Heart in Healthcare was called in to help fulfill these requests along with current volunteer art program at the Jacksonville Campus.
Artist-in-Residence Samantha has embraced the challenges of working in a new location with a new population of patients. “It is large campus and new territory with the need to educate staff on who we are, what services we offer, and how it can benefit the patients. Creating relationships with staff is a very important step in finding patients who would greatly benefit from our program beyond those who see the concierge card and call to make the art at the bedside request.”
Much of our time at Mayo is spent working on the Heart Transplant floor, the ICU waiting room, and the Surgery floor where patients always have their doors open and are eager for art projects to pass the time. On a recent visit, Samantha met a patient who had worked with Lori Guadagno, Co-founder of Art with a Heart, at Wolfson Children’s Hospital over 10 years ago. Samantha introduced her to Blackout Poetry, which is created by using pages from classical literature. Using the pages of an existing text, words and phrases are isolated then piece together to create lyrical masterpieces. Once the patient completed the project, she happily read it aloud to the nursing tech that entered to do her vitals.
In the coming weeks, we look forward to having Artists-in-Residence Maddie and Matt join the team over at Mayo, and we will greatly benefit from their presence and talent.
Opmerkingen