Incorporating the arts into health care encourages patients' creativity and expression. Through interaction with art and artists, those with cancer and their families receive the tools to help them find personal meaning in their cancer experience. Opportunities encompass keeping a journal, dance, photography, music, painting, drama, art and performance. Patients can attend educational lectures, watch or take part in musical or theatrical performances, or create paintings and sculptures. Options furnished by the arts and humanities and complementary therapies programs are tailored to the needs of each patient.
Serious illness sparks a chain of events that can challenge the human spirit as well as the body.
The shattering occurrence of a health crisis such as cancer often finds people with feelings of loss, isolation, fear and helplessness. Questions about meaning and faith become entangled with realities of treatment plans, physical changes and interrupted lives. Cancer patients and their families often choose to receive support from our spiritual care staff. Together they can address specific concerns as well as find power and encouragement to sustain their journeys of faith and hope. The Virginia Piper Cancer Institute offers a variety of support and educational resources for people who have been diagnosed with cancer and are learning to live with their disease.