Art from the heart…
This weekend, with my wonderful fellow pre-nursing society members, I volunteered at Gilda’s Club. Gilda’s Club is a cancer support society that offers families and friends, who have been affected by cancer, a safe haven to build relationships and recieve social support. We helped them set up for their art award ceremony. It was for the winners of an expressive art competition for highschool students who had all been affected by cancer somehow and had submitted pieces of art (poems, paintings, and essays) that conveyed their experience. It was lovely getting to read some of the stories and hearing from the leaders of Gilda’s Club who explained to us that this was one of the few opportunities that many of the students had to express their emotions in a positive way.
I love seeing the therapeutic effect of art and am looking forward to taking MHS 248, Medical Humanities, a class that explores how disciplines of humanities are applied as treatments. As well, my health promotion professor this semester is managing the release of an album created in association with the Monroe Carrell Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt. In our last class, she brought one of the first copies of the album, titled Everybody Has a Story, for us to see. The album is a compilation of songs written by patients in Vanderbilt’s music therapy program and recorded by famous artists in Nashville, like Faith Hill and Sheryl Crow. Not only do I think its so beautiful to see creative expression as a form of therapy, but it is wonderful to see that our professors are so involved with what they teach us!
