ArchivesCategory: Teaching

Last week, I was fortunate to present a workshop at the second annual DOTmed, a Dublin-based healthcare innovation conference like no other. DOTmed follows a fierce curiosity on the future of healthcare, with priorities rigorously routed in the innermost realities of the human condition. Organized by Drs. Ronan Kavanagh and Muiris Houston, DOTmed mixed a stiff […]Continue Reading

“Let the familiar become strange and the strange familiar — the two rules of creativity.” –Sam Keen, 1991   One of my best collaborators in the work of art-viewing lives with extreme visual impairment. One of the things I appreciate about working with him is the renewed sense of focus on what the work is […]Continue Reading

I kicked off 2013 with a new tradition for Arts Practica – New Years cards! I created them in gratitude to friends and colleagues making the world better – and then sent them all over that very world. I chose this quote by Einstein to share because I love it so: I love it because […]Continue Reading

I’m at home, recovering from an unexpected surgery. And doing really well (Joy! Relief! Terror. Oh my lucky stars. I live in Boston and have access to great care.) Resting at home has brought the joy of sweet time to consume things, like books, soup, and the company of soup-bearing dear ones. Workout videos bearing […]Continue Reading

Short answer: because creative skills are essential to successful medical practice; they are easily and authentically learned in art. See below for some key studies that inform my opinion that quality clinician attention may be healthcare’s greatest resource, and art has a role in the development of quality attention. Long answer: Watch a video of a panel […]Continue Reading

If so, I’d love to hear from you! I’m planning to moderate a plenary on the research produced by collaborations between art museums and medical schools at the Arts Education Partnership National Forum with speakers Irwin Braverman, MD, and Diana Beckmann-Mendez, PhD, RN, FNP-BC. Braverman and Beckmann-Mendez will speak about their research and experiences using art interventions […]Continue Reading

When I first heard of Karen Lee Sobol’s story of experimental treatment for a rare type of cancer, I simply could not imagine what she had been through. And when I learned that the disease was labeled “incurable”, I didn’t believe it at first. Her book, Twelve Weeks: An Artist’s Story of Cancer, Healing, and […]Continue Reading

Here’s an untrue story: your very first career move should somehow gel identity, passions, goals, location, finances, family planning, everything, in one high-speed precision job-landing. Funny how students know that’s not true, but can be prone to believing it anyway. Funny how believing it is a quick road to feelings of yuckiness (not to mention a time-suck). Funny how students training in […]Continue Reading

Hi and welcome! I’m happy to have you here. For the most part, this blog is going to be about observation, an arts-based skill, in the context of medicine. Teaching observation as a professional skill is what I have been doing for much of the last ten years. Teaching it, and learning about its genesis and […]Continue Reading