Five Questions With: Paula Most

Since 1992, Paula Most, founder of the Healing Arts Program at Hasbro Children’s Hospital, has been the program’s prime mover. She has structured the Healing Arts Program to fit the therapeutic needs of patients by offering regular visits by healing arts professionals to help normalize a hospital stay. Professional artists, musicians, art historians as well as RISD interns offer patients a way to engage other aspects of their lives that doesn’t revolve around their disease.

PBN: You’ve been living and working on the shared boundary of art and health care for some time now. How frequently do you run into people who don’t immediately understand the value of art in a health care setting, or do most people understand this intuitively by now?
MOST:
Because art in the health care setting is not commonly thought of in the same breath, the combination of the two is generally not well appreciated or understood. Over time this barrier has been overcome by the clear evidence of patient and family satisfaction and staff support. Art is now seen throughout Lifespan and our hospitals. It enriches the lives of patients, families, visitors and staff, and raises public consciousness about the important role art can play in humanizing health care.

PBN: What was your own first piece of art to be displayed in a health care setting, and what was the response to it?
MOST:
This is a difficult question to answer, but when Hasbro Children’s Hospital was built in 1994 the hospital partnered with the RI Arts community and over 600 works of art were donated to the hospital. So it really was not just one work of art that went up first. It was an entire collection of art donated by Rhode Island artists. The response from the first day was overwhelmingly enthusiastic and positive. Thanks to the vision of dedicated art enthusiasts and a vibrant local arts community, the patients, families, visitors and staff of Hasbro Children’s Hospital and Rhode Island Hospital enjoy some of the state’s most exciting artworks by Rhode Island artists. Our goal has been to create an environment that is appealing, engaging and interesting to the hospital population.

PBN: How important is creativity, their own and others’, to people who are healing in a hospital setting?
MOST:
Art provides patients with a sense of normalcy. Being sick does not mean you are unable to create, think, make decisions, etc. Maintaining a linkage to the patient’s normal world is crucial in promoting healing. Art programs provide a calming and comforting activity in an otherwise stressful situation for most patients. Being involved in the act of creating a work of art can aid in pain management, help patients retain a sense of control and provide stress relief.

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PBN: What have been the most satisfying recent exhibits of Museum on Rounds?
MOST:
Museum on Rounds is not an exhibition program, but a therapeutic art program for pediatric patients at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. The program began in 1994 as a collaboration between Hasbro Children’s Hospital and The Museum of Art, Rhode Island School of Design and continues to this day to offer art workshops to hospitalized children. In weekly art sessions, patients create their own artwork inspired by a famous work of art. The art program provides diversion, stimulation and involvement with a familiar activity in an unfamiliar setting.

PBN: Is there one story that you tell the most often about art in the hospital setting having a profound experience on one patient’s life?
MOST:
Amy was a 14-year-old cancer patient at Hasbro Children’s Hospital. While receiving chemotherapy treatment, Amy grew to love the weekly art sessions (Museum on Rounds) in the Tomorrow Fund Oncology Clinic. Amy loved to paint and draw because it shifted her focus away from her immediate medical issues. She would immerse herself in her artwork for hours on end.
Her mom said the following about the effect the creative work had on Amy: “The program does wonders for kids in the hospital, and for Amy it gave her a chance to do something other than brood about her illness. It inspired her, motivated her to tap into her creative side and most of all, helped her to heal inside.”
Amy lost her fight with cancer in 1997, but her name is often linked with Museum on Rounds. In loving tribute to their daughter, the family sponsors a walk-a-thon and softball tournament every year with the proceeds coming to the Museum on Rounds program.

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