Amna Nawaz:
As the impact of art on health outcomes is being studied more and more, some hospitals are now focusing on even the youngest of patients.
Special correspondent Mike Cerre takes a look at one approach for all ages. It’s part of our series on arts and health and part of our Canvas coverage.
(SINGING)
Mike Cerre:
Music therapist Brianna Negrete on her morning rounds at this neonatal intensive care unit for patients who have yet to experience life outside of this hospital.
Brianna Negrete, Music Therapist:
We found that infants that receive music therapy have a reduced length of stay than patients that do not. It’s a positive way to engage in an environment that there’s a lot of stress. It’s great to be able to bring infants together developmentally to help support them socializing, but also for our staff support as well to engage with them in a positive way through music.
Mike Cerre:
At University of California San Francisco Health, the art of recovery relies on a variety of creative programs and artists working directly with its patients and medical teams throughout its hospital network.
Here at the UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital in Oakland, they produce a variety of entertainment and game shows, some of them bilingual. On its closed-circuit TV network, patients can call in to interact from their rooms, as well as participate in the production, like Mason Allen Cook’s (ph) show on goose bumps.
Woman:
Oh, it’s so sweet that you wanted to shout-out your family, friends and nurses.
Woman:
Shout-out to our audience too.
Jessica Chung, Child Life Specialist:
Sometimes, they’re just silly shows. Sometimes, we just talk about poop for 30 minutes, which is really delightful, and we have kids who call us and tell us poop jokes.
Mike Cerre:
Since daily poop analysis plays an oversized role for kids undergoing extended treatment here, producer Jessica Chung believes the shows complement the medical treatment, as well as entertain and distract the younger patients.
Jessica Chung:
We have had patients who have maybe shared with us that it’s really hard to cope in the hospital, and so we have done shows related to building resiliency and building coping strategies like deep breathing or distraction or journaling.
Rechelle Porter, Association Director of Child Life Services, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital Oakland: People come here for the medical care, but I think it’s also important for them to understand about what we do for the emotional side of our patients to help with their coping.
Mike Cerre:
Rechelle Porter’s Child Life Services team is funded by local philanthropy.
But pediatric oncologist Dr. Elliot Stieglitz believes the growing medical evidence of their effectiveness is making them more than just nice-to-have ancillary services.
Dr. Elliot Stieglitz, Pediatric Oncologist:
A patient can be undergoing a bone marrow biopsy or a lumbar puncture or even undergoing an MRI, where they have to sit still. Using music therapy to physiologically bring the stress and the tension down allows us to accomplish those procedures with as little side effects, with as few side effects as possible.
Mike Cerre:
Here at UCSF Mount Zion Hospital in San Francisco, the original art of recovery class is the country’s oldest hospital art class of its kind. It was co-founded nearly 40 years ago during the AIDS crisis by a resident doctor along with an art therapist.
Amy Van Cleve, Director of Art for Recovery: It’s totally natural.
Mike Cerre:
Muralist turned art therapist Amy Van Cleve is its current director.
Amy Van Cleve:
It’s frequent and it’s special that we hear people say in our program that art or Art for Recovery or coming to these groups saved my life.
Mike Cerre:
Mostly cancer patients who are survivors, these weekly classes are much more than art and crafts activities just for passing time or decorating hospital walls.
Amy Van Cleve:
It’s not about making pretty or making perfect art. It’s about putting your truth on the page. It’s about getting the emotional experience out and on the table. No judgment. And once that clicks, usually, it takes a couple sessions for them to kind of step outside of their thinking brain and what they think they should be creating.
Sylvia Parisotto has been battling her brain cancer for 24 years.
Sylvia Parisotto, Cancer Patient:
So I had one of my brain scans when you had to carry around the film. And so I started painting on it. And I said, here, let me show you what’s in my brain. Let me show you my resilience, my hope, and my strength.
So I started painting these warrior women on my brain scans. And it was sort of my way to take back my scan and have some agency in my health.
Mike Cerre:
The class also includes former hospital medical staff, like Mary Casey, who unexpectedly became a cancer patient herself.
Mary Casey, Former Nurse, UCSF Hospitals:
I worked in the pediatric cancer population, and I could see how the creative approach and the outlets really help not only young people through their journey of cancer and the illness, but trying to get healthy, but it really can help adult people too, because we’re allowed to play and escape the pain and the medicine and the treatment for a while, and also be around people that are going through similar experiences.
Amy Van Cleve:
Statistically, men do not use any of the supportive care services in hospitals. It’s just, culturally, they go into their silos, and we have a few in our groups, but I decided to make a group just for them.
Anu Kirk, Cancer Patient:
But I think some of it is that most men aren’t comfortable being too vulnerable. They’re not comfortable talking about pain. They’re not comfortable talking about being scared, right? All of that is a part of being a cancer patient.
Mike Cerre:
Anu Kirk, a rock singer until he got throat cancer, credits the Art of Recovery program for helping him accept his condition and inspiring his new career as a therapist.
San Francisco’s Museum of Modern Art recently honored the Art of Recovery with a special exhibition of its work and a celebration of the healing community the arts have created inside a medical community.
For the “PBS News Hour,” I’m Mike Cerre in San Francisco.
