We Are All Artists: Creations by Healthcare Workers
Impressions from an increadible art show presented by the Colorado Resiliency Arts Lab (CORAL) on Feburary 9 at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop.
Last night my aunt and I attended an incredible and unique art show that was 5 years in the making, and transcended the artwork on the wall. The show presented a collection created by healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic in a unique interventional project to help healthcare workers reduce psychological distress and burnout symptoms during the COVID-19 pandemic. This was a project funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, and randomized enrolled healthcare professionals into groups for creative art therapy (writing, dance, music, visual arts, or control) and partnered each groups with creative arts therapists and writing experts to lead weekly sessions for 12 weeks. The participants worthier through 3 themes over the 12 weeks, moving from creating safety, to inviting vulnerability, and then integrating into a transformative community. What is more is that this project also collected data to look at whether creative arts therapy (something that sounds like it should work), was feasible and whether it would reduce psychological distress in healthcare workers. The answer has been a resounding yes — that arts therapy is feasible and effective in helping healthcare workers work through the stresses of the pandemic and the healthcare system. And this had been published by Marc Moss and colleagues in The American Journal of Medicine, link here .
Over the past 5 years the Colorado Resiliency Arts Lab (CORAL) has enrolled 7 cohorts of over 350 participants, and has seen a significant reduction in depression (25%), anxiety (23%), PTSD (34%), burnout (26%) and desire to resign (12%). This art exhibit is now making its way on tour to different cities and willed in Washington DC, bringing attention not only to what healthcare workers face, but to this concept of creative arts therapy to help us heal. And importantly, it is not just the art itself, but the concept of coming together with others in a safe space and being empowered to truly express ones’ emotions and experiences, and then sharing those experiences together. It’s the artistic expression and the community that allows that expression to surface I think that is what helps people heal.
I think that when we talk about healthcare worker burnout, there is a natural cynicism that comes when people center on strategies focused on individual solutions to fight burnout. Some may feel that this puts the weakness of burnout and burden of healing on the workers themselves. It is up to us to set boundaries, and pursue our own wellness when the systems themselves are not designed to honor the wellness of their workers. If we truly wanted to help healthcare workers heal, some argue, would we not create ways to foster quality doctor-patient and nurse-patient interactions and ability to pursue one’s craft to the best of our pursuing rather than have systems that seem to be created to maximize institutional profitability through RVU targets and electronic medical record (EMR) documentation and coding requirements? A core value I hold it that for a healthcare institution to truly care about and be able to care for the health of our patients we must also care about and do what we can to maximize the healthcare of our employees. And this is something I strive for within my teams (micro-communities) in every place I work and exist, whether in the clinic, hospital, or in my volunteer work with my nonprofit. Yet the system is greater than our microenvironments, and it is bigger than clinics or local institutions when we are talking about the behemoth of healthcare. So while we must emphasize and work toward structural change to protect our healthcare professionals from moral injury, what do we do right now? What do we do to help each other now?
I believe one way to heal our healthcare community is through projects such as CORAL that tap into building community and allowing people to truly express what is within themselves to share with the community. Bearing witness to another’s art and creation is a way that we stand with one another and let people know that they are seen and that their experiences resonate. For some people this may be art, music, writing, or dance, like the CORAL project. For others, it may be an expression through athletics, expressing oneself and one’s passion on a bike or by lacing up running shoes and donning a jersey with others in your event, race, or on your team. For others it may be preparing, planning and hosting a party for their friends and sharing the love of food and cooking and that shared communal experience. And for others it may be gathering for book clubs or movie groups, watching, sharing and then discussing what resonated with us from someone’s work. We all have something inside us, something we can create, whatever our canvas may be, and for healing, whatever that expression is, sharing it in community with others is what I witnessed last night and believe is the special sauce to healing through trauma. This coming together, realizing we are not alone, and the resilience that comes from it can help us realize our common experiences and perhaps re-energize us to continue to work toward supporting system and structural improvements the systems and structures that compound the moral injury as well.
Last night I had a moment where I saw one of the artists, Audrey, standing in front of the self portrait that she painted in this project. I looked at her and pointing back and forth at her painting I said, “This is beautiful. You’re beautiful!” And then I asked her about her experience and learned how since this project she has continued to paint and pursue her passion for art. There are many other artists who have had these same sustained experiences, and I left the show talking with my aunt about how we all have something beautiful within us to express in the world. It’s about being in a place where we can express it that allows us to make that full contribution to improving the world around us.
I am so appreciative of this art show for showing the power of the collective communal expression of art and healing and the ripple effects that will not only emanate from the works on the wall, but in the ripple effects that comes from those witnessing their work in how we go forth and share that experience with other.
And so, I invite you to see this amazing exhibit, and you can see it online here. Maybe spending a few minutes online looking at these works will make you think about what is inside of you just waiting to be expressed in the world?
