Humanities in Medicine supports Mayo Clinic’s primary value — the needs of the patient come first — with an aim to care for the whole patient in a hopeful, healing environment. Learn how Ariel Boswell and Robin Anderson use their artistic and writing skills to connect with patients.

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Twice a week, Robin Anderson, an artist with the Dolores Jean Lavins Center for Humanities in Medicine program, visits hospitalized patients in Rochester. Her visits are often with patients on long-term bedrest — cancer, transplant and pregnant patients — whose care team has requested a visit with the Arts at the Bedside artist.

Anderson has worked in the behavioral health field using art as therapy for much of her career. Now she wheels a cart with art supplies to patients' rooms, offering them an opportunity to talk about and get involved in art projects.

The experience has been rewarding.

"Many patients tell me they haven't picked up a crayon since they were 5 years old, and others are professional artists who want to show me their work," Anderson says. "Sometimes our time is spent talking about and sharing art, not necessarily making it."

In one case, Anderson worked with a hospice patient on several projects for over a month. When the patient could no longer do art, Anderson engaged her grandchildren in a family waiting room to make art for their grandmother. The family was grateful that the children had a way to communicate with their grandmother through art.

During the pandemic, Anderson created art projects that came with videos and kits that patients and their visitors could request and do on their own — making greeting cards, origami, mandalas and tissue paper flowers; painting with watercolors; and drawing on scratchboards.

Last year, hospital units went through almost 2,000 of the art kits Anderson and her team of volunteers created.

Arts at the Bedside aims to enhance the hospital experience and provide a way to distract and engage patients. It differs from art therapy, which supports patients' clinical needs.

Providing distraction and purpose

Anderson helped one heart transplant patient weather a lengthy hospital stay and find a new purpose.

Katie White of Victoria, Minnesota, had heart failure due to congenital heart disease. She'd been living at Mayo Clinic for a month, waiting for a transplant, and was bored, anxious and approaching hopelessness.

"For the first time in my life, I had nothing to do," says White, a former registered nurse.

Anderson presented art options, and White showed interest in polymer clay. Anderson helped her get started making jewelry from clay, launching what is now a career for White. Anderson brought in supplies each week, and White's mother baked the clay earrings at home.

Working on jewelry every day during two and a half months of my hospital stay gave me something to look forward to, a purpose and the will to live.

Katie White

"Working on jewelry every day during two and a half months of my hospital stay gave me something to look forward to, a purpose and the will to live," says White, who launched a jewelry company during her posttransplant stay.

Anderson has worked with patients as young as 3 and as old as 97, and she says that Arts at the Bedside provides a much-needed distraction for many patients.

"Patients tell me things like, 'I can't believe I forgot about my cancer while I was doing art with you,'" Anderson says. "It's rewarding to help take their minds off their medical problems and see their creativity shine. I think it's just as important to nurture the human spirit as it is to nurture the physical aspects of healing. Any kind of creativity can be part of the healing process."

Putting pen to paper

Ariel Boswell provides a similar service to Anderson's — creative writing at the bedside.

Boswell visits with referred patients who have longer hospital stays, primarily in intensive care, obstetrics, oncology and pediatrics. She helps patients get their thoughts and experiences on paper — assisting a pregnant patient in writing a letter to her baby and journaling about her pregnancy, scribing a poem for a stroke patient, writing about a pediatric patient's pets, and helping a patient at their end of life with legacy writing to leave for family members.

"Writing about things that comfort you normally — outside of the hospital — can bring you comfort when you're in the hospital," says Boswell, a registered nurse who also works one day a week in the Department of Family Medicine.

“As a nurse, I understand the importance of prioritizing the medical side of the patient. Writing and art at the bedside help us connect with patients as whole people and allows them to reconnect with who they are outside of the hospital," she says.

"Helping them open up to creativity can facilitate healing in a different way," Boswell says. "I love connecting with patients during their time of suffering and waiting. Providing creative writing at the bedside has helped me view health as physical, mental and emotional, which makes me a better nurse, I think."

Boswell, who is pursuing a Master of Fine Arts degree, also serves as a facilitator for Literature in Medicine workshops, part of Humanities in Medicine programming, for Mayo Clinic staff and students. Once a month, interested staff and students gather virtually to read a selection from literature and talk and write about it.

"In the course of the workday, we don't have the opportunity to focus attention on things besides medicine," she says. "Literature in Medicine provides a respite to notice beautiful art and words, and express our own."

That can help staff and patients alike.

"Just like the benefits of art and writing at the bedside for patients, sharing about art and creative writing can help employees reflect, express and validate emotions, heal and connect with others, and find comfort and meaning," Boswell says.

"Writing and art at the bedside help us connect with patients as whole people and allows them to reconnect with who they are outside of the hospital," she says.

Putting humanities at the center of healing, hope and well-being

Humanities in Medicine supports Mayo Clinic's primary value — the needs of the patient come first — with an aim to care for the whole patient in a hopeful, healing environment and train a humanistic, agile and well workforce.

Throughout time, people have used arts including singing, painting and dance for healing purposes. Modern healthcare settings continue to use art to contribute to well-being — art in physical spaces where healthcare is delivered, musical performances in lobbies and healing gardens, arts at the bedside programming to provide distraction and hope to patients, and creative arts therapy as part of clinical plans.

Arts and artistic expression, both appreciating and creating it, can help people in multiple ways, such as through reducing anxiety and increasing motivation to recover. According to the American Congress of Rehabilitation Medicine, making or seeing art can affect the brain by increasing serotonin levels, increasing blood flow to the part of the brain associated with pleasure, fostering new ways of thinking and imagining a more hopeful future.

In a 2020 report, “The Fundamental Role of the Arts and Humanities in Medical Education,” the Association of American Medical Colleges says that by integrating arts and humanities in medical education, trainees and physicians can become better observers and interpreters — and build empathy, communication and teamwork skills.

Engaging in creative means of expression such as narrative writing can offer an opportunity to reflect on and process experiences, which can enhance well-being.

Whether engaging the healthcare staff or patients directly, applied humanities programs and activities ultimately serve the patient.

Mayo Clinic incorporates arts for enjoyment and creative arts in patient care through three humanities-focused centers: the Center for Humanities at Mayo Clinic in Arizona, the Lyndra P. Daniel Center for Humanities in Medicine at Mayo Clinic in Florida, and the Dolores Jean Lavins Center for Humanities in Rochester.

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This story originally appeared in Mayo Clinic Alumni Magazine.