New program focuses on artist community
"When are you going to get a real job?" is a question often heard by musicians, dancers, actors, and visual artists. But the occupational health professionals who developed the new Arts-Medicine Project at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) Health Sciences Center view work in the arts not only as a serious occupation but as a sometimes hazardous one.
Only a few programs nationally specialize in treating artists, and they usually focus on a particular group, such as dancers or musicians. The UIC Arts-Medicine Project, located in the UIC School of Public Health’s Great Lakes Center for Occupational and Environmental Safety and Health, is the only program of its kind geared to all artists, as well as stage directors, stage hands, lighting and scenery designers, carpenters, and maintenance workers. The program takes an occupational health approach, emphasizing prevention as well as treatment.
The co-directors and founders of the program, David Hinkamp, MD, and Katherine Duvall, MD, are artists, as are most of the other health professionals in the program. Hinkamp, a physician in the UIC University Health Service, plays jazz flute and saxophone. Duvall, also a physician in the UIC University Health Service, plays piano and performs jazz dance and ballet.
The project staff work closely with local museums, galleries, arts and cultural organizations, art schools, and art departments including The Art Institute of Chicago.
Linda Pas, director of health services at the Art Institute, says she welcomed the program with open arms because of her concern for the welfare of students, faculty, and museum staff.
"Maintaining a healthy environment and raising awareness about arts safety is an ongoing challenge," she says. "There is a great need for this project, and I’ve been very impressed by the dedication of the project’s leadership."
The physicians treat many visual and performing artists as part of their practice. In one instance, an art instructor, having noticed a dramatic change in a graduate student’s mood and behavior, referred the student to a local psychiatrist who, in turn, referred the student to Hinkamp. The student was missing classes and exhibiting extreme irritability.
Hinkamp discovered that the student developed nerve damage from solvents he’d been using in the creation of oil paintings at school. After school, he taught airbrush painting at an art center where he breathed in even higher concentrations of solvents. The student recovered within eight weeks by avoiding further exposure to solvents.
Working with artists presents numerous challenges, both physicians say. Hinkamp notes that it’s difficult to reach artists because many work in isolation and many have no medical insurance. For these reasons and others, many artists self-treat or rely on alternative health practitioners. The UIC Arts-Medicine Project and its affiliate, Cook County Hospital, provide services to individuals without insurance or other means of payment.
Many people working in the arts ignore health problems, especially when preparing for a show or an exhibit. By the time they seek treatment, the condition has become chronic and more difficult
to treat. Complicating the situation further is that sometimes the recommended treatment for many of the health problems that artists experience is to stop or dramatically reduce the activity causing the problem. "I know artists are not going to just stop doing their art. The challenge is to work with them to modify what they are doing rather than stop it," Duvall says. "We also have to be willing to explore with them their use of alternative medicine."
Though occupational medicine professionals offer a variety of treatment options, Duvall says that prevention, followed by early diagnosis, is most effective. Repetitive motion problems, for instance, can be reduced or eliminated by, among other approaches, adjusting practice schedules, modifying techniques, properly warming up and cooling down, and exercising.
In addition to creating an interdisciplinary network of specialists to treat arts workers in a clinical setting, the UIC Arts-Medicine Project offers educational programs and workplace evaluations and includes a research component.
The Arts-Medicine Project also proposes to meet the general health care needs of arts workers. "Some artists may not have arts-related disorders but just are more comfortable seeing a health care professional with an understanding of arts-related issues," Hinkamp adds.
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