Growing room
For starters, they plan to embrace all of the arts—music and film, as well as literature—and history and social science. Hallberg and Marshall envision a large-scale collaboration with area arts organizations, including the Weisman Art Museum, Walker Art Center, Minnesota Opera Company, Guthrie Theater (Hallberg is company physician), and perhaps even local bookstores and Minnesota Public Radio (where Hallberg regularly reports).
Mary Faith Marshall, Ph.D., director of the Center for Medical Humanities and the Arts, hopes to one day teach medical students about depression, addiction, and grief through a course on the blues.
At the same time, the center will play muse to the artists. Currently, Hallberg is working with the American Composers Forum in St. Paul to establish a composer in residence at the Medical School, perhaps the first program of its kind in the nation. The plan is to invite a composer to take part in all aspects of the medical school experience, from patient care to end-of-life decision-making—the idea being that immersion in the medical culture will inspire a musical composition.
A strong foundation
Much of the groundwork for the center has been laid by Hallberg, who left private practice in 2001 to find a place where he could match his passion for medical humanities with his interest in education.
As assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, Hallberg quickly put his arts and medicine plans into action by inviting Guthrie actors to perform Miss Evers' Boys for the Medical School's Physician and Society course, which deals with everything from bioethics to spirituality in health care. Hallberg acknowledges that bioethics can be taught more conventionally. But he says Miss Evers' Boys, a play by Medical School alumnus David Feldshuh, M.D. '79, about the notorious Tuskegee syphilis experiment, delivers a message about research ethics in a way that a standard lecture can't.
At its simplest level, the Center for Medical Humanities and the Arts will serve as a clearinghouse, informing the medical community—via a Web site—about local arts happenings.
Medicine is not just about science. The arts and humanities are key to nurturing the humanness of medicine.- Deborah Powell, M.D., dean of the Medical School
Besides publicizing events, the center will also create them, as it did last fall, when it cosponsored programs featuring Medical School alumna Joia Mukherjee, M.D., M.P.H., and Pulitzer Prize–winning author Tracy Kidder. Mukherjee is an advocate for health-care rights and medical director of Partners in Health (PIH), an international medical organization that leads community-based health programs around the world. Kidder's book Mountains Beyond Mountains is about PIH founder Paul Farmer, M.D., Ph.D.