While poetry, dance and performance serve as recreation for some, the activities can also serve as creative steps toward recovery for patients involved in the Shands Arts in Medicine program.
Centered around the philosophy that participation in the arts can help patients heal, the 18-year-old program will be featured on a PBS documentary airing tonight.
The hour-long documentary, entitled "Healing Words: Poetry & Medicine," will air at 1:30 p.m. and 9 p.m. on WUFT-TV/DT.
The program was established in 1990 by three UF doctors who are also poets, and it is one of the largest programs of its kind, said Tina Mullen, the program's director.
The documentary focuses on the role poetry can play in the healing process. Viewers will get a look at the interaction of young children, adolescents, medical professionals and medical students in the hospital and how they are involved with the program.
The program's writer-in-residence, Gail Ellison, said she hopes the film will motivate viewers to get involved.
"I'm curious and excited about what this will mean about the dialogue that will go on nationally and internationally," Ellison said.
She met the documentary's director, James Cavenaugh, producers, Dr. David Watts and Joan Baranow, and prominent U.S. poet John Fox after she gave a presentation about the program at Duke University.
Ellison said she invited the crew to see the program's success in Gainesville. Their visit to Shands in 2004 left them wanting more.
One day of filming developed into four days of recording patients as they worked on their art projects.
Jeremy Horton, a 20-year-old pediatric patient and program participant, said drawing enables him to escape from his illness. Horton said he was initially hesitant to draw for the first time since elementary school. Since he became part of the program, however, he has created images related to his love for the outdoors.
"I just go with it," he said. "It's nice because you get to look at something pleasant other than these white walls."
