Volume 31

January - 2022

Cover: Zen

I make a conscious effort to find peace in the midst of all the sorrow you may find in an emergency department. And once I find that moment of peace, I try to capture it in a single photograph that I can keep forever. Sometimes you have to travel far from emergency department to find that peace. I personally leave the hospital campus entirely during my lunch break to decompress my mind. Then there are times when you just have to put legitimate distance between you and the emergency department to fully decompress from the build-up of trauma; even if it’s just for one day off. The point is to find a place that will help you rejuvenate, relax, and reset your emotions. For this photograph, I happily traveled 350 miles up the California Pacific Coast to find my peace. Here, I soaked in the environment with all my visceral feelings and sensations: the brisk air I inhaled and exhaled, the radiant sun beaming on my face, the cool breeze gliding on my skin, absorbing the scent of the ocean and the sound of its waves crashing rhythmically, and just gazing around, admiring its scenic beauty.

Letter from the Editors:

Welcome to Art of Emergency Medicine, an online blog featuring amazing works of art created by your Emergency Medicine colleagues, along with their own stories of wellness and inspiration. We are re-introducing ourselves this month with an extra large volume and a brand new site design and increased focus on providing wellness tips and truly creating a community. Join us for the next year, and read below for a sense of our inspiration.

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We always talk about burnout and strategies to combat burnout, particularly in emergency medicine, due to the high stress of our job, financial concerns, constantly fluctuating work hours, and emotional fatigue. 

More often than not, most of what affects our well-being are institutional factors including documentation, dealing with insurance companies, engaging in negotiating, and attempting to provide patient care in a profit-focused healthscape. But, that does not mean we are without control. Indeed, according to Martin Seligman in Authentic Happiness, up to 40% of happiness is under voluntary control and a result of engagement and meaning.

Our hobbies and art are one method that we are able to voluntarily engage in an effort to promote our own wellness. There is more to physicians than simple clinical acumen; they are  complex people with a broad collection of talents and creativity. Pursuing these passions, whether it is visual arts, creative writing, music, or others, allows one to focus not only on tasks they enjoy, but offers an outlet to express emotions, feelings, and frustrations in a non-verbal manner and allow for development of a positive identity while preventing compassion fatigue, which may be detrimental to patient care. 

A study done in Oncologists and Palliative care physicians demonstrated that art therapy sessions improved physician’s emotional exhaustion and feelings of depersonalization. Moreover, art can reduce tension, anger,  fatigue, and other symptoms of burnout. 

Further, art provides an avenue for physicians to practice mindfulness, allowing a time for meditation, reflection, and a chance to navigate the complex feelings that emergency physicians experience daily on shift. There have been multiple studies showing the benefits of mindfulness in promoting wellness, mitigating stress, and reducing burnout. This is a skill that can be passed on throughout the emergency medicine community from physicians, to residents, nurses, techs, EMTs and more. All pay an emotional toll when providing care in stressful, emergent environments. 

Multiple programs have been started across the country to connect the humanities, arts, and medicine together with a focus  on improving employee wellness, connecting to patients, and developing resilience. You may see art galleries in institutions from NYC Health and Hospitals to Stanford University to Georgetown and University of Chicago with the goal of engaging their physicians, both encouraging others to take up their creative pursuits and to enjoy and connect with the work. 

Art of Emergency Medicine is one such program with a focus towards providing encouragement to all providers along the emergency medicine spectrum to pursue creative outlets as a means to provide mindfulness, promote wellness, and prevent burnout among our specialty. Developing a community with monthly release of artwork from providers with stories of how their time reminiscing on patient care, the creation of the art, or simply the meaning behind a piece to engage colleagues has been a primary goal of the Art Blog from the beginning. Recently the site has been expanded to include short topics focusing on different aspects of wellness and offering short, easy implementable changes in daily life to improve mood on shift. I would highly encourage perusing the galleries of Art of Emergency Medicine, the stories of wellness from your colleagues, and consider it as a reminder for you to pursue those hobbies and passions which bring you significant joy. Perhaps, consider sharing them with your colleagues as well. You never know how much your art may help yourself and others.

Untitled

A Great Egret relaxing in the tall grass at Sweet Water Wetlands park in Gainesville Florida.

Reaching

I found painting to be a very therapeutic hobby. When I paint, I just think about the process of painting. I don’t think about bills , work, stress, patients, etc.... My brain is focused on the painting and gives my mind and body a break from the everyday stressors. Without painting, I think I would have burned out long ago, as the process of putting paint on a canvas, slows my brain down to process.

Desert Orange

White sands national park in New Mexico is a different world. Definitely one to add to the bucket list. Photography has helped me prevent burnout by being an escape. I can be transported back to these places I once visited and it helps remind me that there’s more to the world than the struggles I and others deal with everyday at work.

Cast ARt Patches

The emergency department isn't very fun for kids, especially if something traumatic requiring a cast has happened. The patches I make help make the entire situation less scary. I use the medical materials for my art to make the entire process less intimidating. If they see that the fun designs on their cast or bandage are made out of the same material the whole process seems less frightening. The cast patches are made from colorful coban wrap and an acrylic adhesive backing. We make thousands of cast and bandage patches a year now and send them all over the world.

Reading by Starlight

Residency is an incredible time where the long hours forge strong friendships and you learn to take full advantage of every moment off. The memories of backpacking trip to Sequoia with my co-residents will stay with me for a lifetime.

Red River Gorge Series 2021

I don't care where you practice - none of us have ever been tried with anything in our line of work like the COVID-19 pandemic. We've all had to face it - we have all had to adapt to the unique sets of challenges it has presented us with and test ourselves. It has been, to say the least, great for my artwork - as I use painting as a therapeutic outlet. I've done more work and progressed as an artist than ever before.

Untitled

A Great blue heron having brunch.

Marine Hunter

Getting outside of the walls of the hospital afford me a chance to practice my craft; to enjoy the outdoors and fresh air and allow some time to clear my mind. I’ve noticed as shifts have piled up and the amount of time I have to dedicate to editing or exploring and taking photos decreases, I feel my own wellness start to decrease with it.

Do you want to see your art shared with the community? Don’t forget to submit today!

Finally, don’t forget to share Art of Emergency Medicine with your colleagues, friends, and family on Twitter or Instagram and like us on Facebook for all the latest news!

This Months Featured Artists:

Andrew Thorne, MD

I am an emergency medicine resident at Harbor-UCLA with a passion for wilderness medicine. I began pursuing photography in medical school as yet another way to engage with the outdoors and share the beauty I find with others.

Benjamin Gibbons

I’m an EMT in the emergency room and about to start internship to become a paramedic. I first started dabbling with photography about 6 years ago and have fallen in love with nature/landscape photos. My biggest hobby is camping and hiking 14ers. See more of his work on instagram.

Daniel Abellera

My Name is Daniel Abellera. I am an Emergency Department RN at a Level 1 Trauma Center. I experience and witness many unfortunate events with the people that I treat as well as the people I work with. Life outside of the emergency department has its low times as well. However, I use photography as one of my many therapeutic tools to capture the shining moments in life. So, when the memory starts to get foggy or days appear bleak, I can always open up my photo album and revisit the good times to get me through days in between.

Giuliano De Portu, MD

I was a professional photojournalist and went to medical school at 33. Currently still doing imaging for fun! You can see more images at www.giulianodeportu.com.

Jack Cameron

Bandage Art started with a need to entertain children in a fast-paced emergency department. I had an abundance of medical supplies but a lack of toys. I started designing cast art of popular children’s characters made out of coban. From there the designs became more requested and I developed a way to apply them better to their casts. I would work on them in my spare time to hand them out to my patients. The figures were so popular that I created an IG account, bandageartists, to share with the medical and veterinary communities. From there the demand has only grown and we send cast art all over the world.

Jon Gaddis

My name is Jon. Prior to EKU's Emergency Medical Care program, I'd always taken an interest in fine arts. I currently work as a paramedic in the Emergency Department (I'm also a current student), and my sense of peace has always been tied to outdoor pursuits; those interests led me to volunteer as a Wilderness Paramedic for RedSTAR in Kentucky's Red River Gorge - which had been a source of inspiration for some of my more recent artwork. The experiences I've had over the years in emergency medicine and the lessons I take from it compliment all areas of my being; I am always learning and growing from them. My art (primarily traditional acrylic on canvas) and my interests across the many disciplines might capture some of the moments on my journey, or reflect upon them. I have found great joy in painting and it has translated positively in all areas of my own life - and hope you can find joy in your own art. See more of his work on instagram.

Scott Goldstein, MD

I am a dual board certified emergency/EMS physician in the Philadelphia area. After a spending years looking for an outlet I went to one of those paintings with wine one night with my wife. After that, I tried on my own and unknown to anyone (even myself) I wasn't half bad. I became self taught in painting of acrylic on canvas and painting coffee on watercolor. See more of his work on Instagram.

Jonathan Warren, MD

A PGY-2 at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center and founder of Art of Emergency Medicine. His hobbies include photography, hiking, Netflix, and dogs. He’s always on the lookout for the next adventure. Find more of his photography on Instagram.

You can learn more about the artists featured in this and other volumes at our contributors page!