Uplifting Healthcare Through Art

Five professionals will be honored this spring for their work promoting the arts in healthcare. Winners of the 2008 Blair L. Sadler International Healing Arts Awards will be recognized at the Society for the Arts in Healthcare’s annual conference in April at the Doubletree Hotel, Philadelphia.

“At a time when patients and their families are increasingly concerned about stressful hospital environments, innovative arts partnerships with healthcare providers are more important than ever,” said Blair L. Sadler, former president of the Rady Children’s Hospital in San Diego and Senior Fellow at the Institute for Healthcare Improvement. “The 2008 award winners are inspiring and effective examples of low-cost, high-impact projects that have had a measurable impact on people’s lives.”

At a special awards ceremony during the conference, Sadler will present a $1,000 cash prize to each of the five first-place professional winners:

• Melinda M. Bridgman, who coordinated Art as a Source of Healing, a model collaboration between Rhode Island School of Design and Emma Pendleton Bradley Hospital in East Providence, R.I.
• Judith-Kate Friedman, who developed a comprehensive music program, Songwriting Works, at the Jewish Home in San Francisco.
• Lisa Gallagher, who designed a program to study the clinical effects of music therapy in palliative medicine through her work for the Cleveland Music School Settlement in conjunction with the Harry R. Horvitz Center for Palliative Medicine at The Cleveland Clinic.
• Patricia Caballero Schillaci, who created a year-long dance movement/therapy program, Prenatal Therapeutic Dance Project, to improve prenatal education and care as well as to provide mind and body healing effects for pregnant women.
• Xueli Tan, a music therapist, who conducted the study,"The Effectiveness of Music Therapy Protocols" to explore ways music therapy could help burn patients in intensive care experiencing pain, anxiety, and muscle tension throughout the process of burn wound dressing changes.

“The Society for the Arts in Healthcare is honored to partner with Blair Sadler, a tireless champion of the arts in healthcare, to promote our shared vision of how the arts can uplift healthcare experiences,” said Anita Boles, executive director of the Society for the Arts in Healthcare in Washington, D.C. “The Sadler awards are an invaluable opportunity for artists around the globe to showcase their exemplary work in healthcare settings.”