The Role of Humanities and the Arts in Healthcare

In an article for the Consumer Health Foundation's publication Connections, Gay Hanna, executive director of the National Center for Creative Aging, outlines several types of integrated arts/humanities/medical programs, including arts therapy, creative aging programs, and the introduction of arts and humanities curricula into medical training.

Hanna writes:

Although advanced medical technology and pharmacology play a critical role in curing disease and treating symptoms, what has often been left out of medical care and training is the people who are being treated—who they are as individuals, their personal histories, their relationships, and their cultural background. This is where the humanities and arts are beginning to play significant roles in medical education as well as throughout healthcare systems.

Also in the same issue of Connections is an article on Anna Deavere Smith's one-woman show, Let Me Down Easy. Drawing from several hundred interviews, Deavere Smith presents nearly two-dozen individual stories that highlight inequities in the healthcare system.