HAND History

In 1978, the late James H. Semans, MD, suggested to an ailing Duke Hospital patient that he listen to music. The following day on rounds, Dr. Semans remarked to the patient that he seemed to be feeling much better and asked why he thought this was so. The patient responded, “I’ve been listening to Beethoven.”

This was all the prompt Dr. Semans needed. With support from the Mary Duke Biddle Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts, he and the late Wayne Rundles, MD, combined to create a new partnership between the arts and medicine at Duke University Medical Center. The mission of the program is to integrate arts and humanities into the life of the Medical Center, to provide comfort, solace and healing to people who suffer and those who care for them.

From organizing the first convocation of hospital arts programs in the United States to publishing the first guide for developing arts in healthcare programs, HAND continues to emphasize developing partnerships between arts and healthcare organizations. Janice Palmer, the founding director and HAND Director Emeritus, was also instrumental in founding the Society for Arts in Healthcare (SAH) and North Carolina Arts for Health (NCAH), the first statewide organization for the field. Linda Belans, who became HAND director in 2003, serves on the boards of both organizations. In the fall of 2006, HAND will host the first training program for Society for Arts in Healthcare consultants to help others begin or expand their arts-in-healthcare programs.

HAND’s initial projects were the acquisition of original indigenous North Carolina visual art for patient rooms and the launching of performing arts events for patients, visitors, and staff.  Examples of programs developed since 1978 include:

• Curating artist residencies by North Carolina and nationally known poets
• Commissioning Wayfinding art
• Creating gardens and art in the medical center’s outdoor spaces
• Establishing the Eye Center Touchable Art Gallery
• Offering movement workshops by American Dance Festival faculty and performers for patients with arthritis
• Producing programs especially for employees including an annual adjudicated Employee Arts and Crafts Show, an annual stage production, and the weekly meeting of the Osler Literary Roundtable.

We have continued to build on the success of these earlier programs. Highlights:

• Bring paid professional performing artists, primarily from the Raleigh-Durham community, to patient rooms
• Incorporate poetry and journaling into care for pediatric bone marrow transplant patients and psychiatric in-patients
• Run a pilot bookmaking and poetry program for at-risk pregnant women on long-term bed-rest
• Installed the Poetry in the Halls on the Walls project
• Produced the photo documentary installation, Gathering in the Stories: the impact of Martin Luther King, Jr’s. life on members of the Duke Health System community
•Produced Heart to Heart: Ain’t Your Life Worth Saving? in partnership with Brown University and North Carolina Central University. The play, about heart health for African American women and their families, was the anchor for Duke’s 2006 Health Chancellor’s Summit
• Produce the annual Colleague Cabaret for staff and caregivers.
• Brought McArthur (Genius) Fellows Eiko and Koma to patient bedside, staff and visitors
• Produced a comprehensive HANDbook for Hospital Performing Artists. 
• Produced the 7th bi-annual They Wrote Us a Poem book
• Host art exhibits for numerous community organizations and individuals
• Hosted interview with Dr. John Hope Franklin
• Created DVDs of HAND, Eiko and Koma at bedside and Dr. John Hope Franklin

This fall, we will host a North Carolina Arts for Health Regional meeting and the first training for Society for Arts in Healthcare consultants. McArthur Fellow Liz Lerman will offer workshops for both groups as well as for caregivers.

Duke University Health System is intricately involved in the life and health of the greater community. In fiscal year 2003, The Duke University Health System provided more than $48 million in uncompensated care to indigent Durham residents. Duke Hospital currently serves 35,000 patients and their families; 27% come from Durham County, 56% come from other NC counties – many of them rural – 17% from out of state, and 13,000 staff and professional healthcare givers. Our program touches a vast number of those who suffer, those who heal and those who care for them.

HAND is a program of Special Programs, a division of Patient Services within Duke University Health System.