UNM AIM

Arts-In-Medicine

The mission of the UNM Arts-in-Medicine Program is to improve health and well-being and alleviate suffering by engaging participants in their innate powers of creativity and healing.

Based at the University of New Mexico Hospitals (UNMH), the program offers a diversity of healing arts and creative encounters intended to revitalize relationship with self and others, transform medical environments, and enrich communities.

Clinical Services

Healing Arts and Creative Encounters for patients and families, as well as staff and providers at The University of New Mexico Hospitals

Education

Healing Arts Certificate Program for undergraduate and graduate students, healthcare professionals, and the community-at-large. One of the six courses offered is an optional study abroad course in southern Africa

Research

Various projects to evaluate the program as a whole as well as specific interventions for specific populations

Community Outreach

Projects to promote and develop arts and health initiatives in local and regional community organizations and healthcare facilities

International Collaboration

Work with various international organizations and universities to promote and develop arts and healthcare programming in other countries; several projects currently underway in southern Africa

Benefits for Patients and Families

  • Encourage participants to stop, examine, and transform the quality of their lives
  • Provide opportunities to express painful and/or suppressed feelings
  • Co-create new perspectives on and increased meaning in life
  • Facilitate positive experiences and heightened self-esteem
  • Relieve pain, discomfort, anxiety, restlessness, respiratory difficulties, insomnia, isolation, depression, withdrawal, loss of speech, grief, and anticipatory grief

Benefits for Health Care Workers

What is the connection between creative encounters and improved medical practice?

As you engage more frequently and more deeply in creative encounters you:

Become more comfortable with states of ambiguity and uncertainty

Learn to facilitate and attend to details of process rather than outcome

Observe and create more opportunities for change and choice

Understand the need for self-care and self-awareness

Express yourself more easily, alone and in collaboration with others

Clarify and personalize your sense of spirituality

Arts-in-Medicine Special Events

The Arts-in-Medicine concert series takes place every Wednesday during the semester from 12:00 – 1:00 p.m. The free concerts are held in the UNM Hospital BBRP Cafe and all are welcome to attend!

From the Director

“Arts-in-Medicine at UNM is a growing community of people immersed in creative process. Through music, art, dance, and many of the healing arts we facilitate this creative process for others in medical and community environments. Our aim is to inspire healing, learning, and potentially a relief from suffering, increased connectedness with self and other, and a renewed sense of possibility. Our commitment to the act of creating is not for ‘decoration’ but rather, to quote Rollo May, for ‘giving birth to some new reality’, whether it be personal or in the world around us. We invite you to participate in our Healing Arts Certificate program or our clinical program at UNM Hospitals, our local and regional community outreach projects or our international exchange program with Sub-Saharan Africa. Whether you are an aspiring or professional artist, a healing arts practitioner or medical provider, a potential donor, or someone dealing with illness, we welcome you.”

—Dr. Patricia Repar, Director, UNM Arts-In-Medicine

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“The difference I see in the patients when they are participating in the art group always fascinates me. They are completely different people.”

Physician at UNMH Psychiatric Center

Psychiatric Center patients participated in live music, open art studio, creative movement and poetry sessions

Healthcare workers received massage, music, art and mindfulness services at UNM Hospitals

Children and their families participated in open art studios in Carrie Tingley Hospital and UNMH Pediatric Dermatology clinic

New Mexicans served by the Arts-in-Medicine Program from September 2023 - May 2024

Patrice Repar
Director
repar@unm.edu

Melissa Sandoval
Program Coordinator
505.277.0404
mwsandov@unm.edu

Muni Kulasinghe
Concert Manager
munikula@gmail.com

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