Barnes-Jewish Hospital Center for Diversity & Cultural Competence with Arts + Healthcare
BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL CENTER FOR DIVERSITY & CULTURAL COMPETENCE
with ARTS + HEALTHCARE
Training: October 19 - December 21, 2010; Mel Watkin, Instructor
Exhibition Site #1: PPRC Gallery @ UMSL
April 26 - June 30, 2011
Exhibition Site #2: Barnes Jewish Hospital, Shoenberg Pavilion
May 3 - June 30, 2011
The mission of the Arts + Healthcare Program at St. Louis' Barnes-Jewish Hospital "is to foster an institutional culture that includes the arts as an integral aspect of healing." As Coordinator Sarah Colby says, "It is another way for our hospital to care for the whole person . . . to treat not just the body, but also the spirit." The Washington University Medical Campus, which includes Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJH), is almost a city unto itself. Over 12,000 people work in the complex, caring for thousands of patients daily. Photography Project Director/Instructor Mel Watkin trained one small but important group within the complex, comprised of interpreters and other staff from the Center for Diversity & Cultural Competence (CDCC). The overall goal of CDCC is to reduce the healthcare disparities in our community and promote an environment in which all patients receive quality care. Providing interpreters for patients who are deaf or speak languages other than English is one of the several strategies CDCC utilizes to reach these goals. In 2010, interpreters supported 42,621 patient encounters at the medical campus using 83 languages. Because of communication barriers, patients who are deaf or who speak limited English are more likely to suffer an adverse event during their care. Having an interpreter to mediate language and cultural understanding can make a life saving difference in a patient's care. They also provide crucial aid to family members under very stressful circumstances. Friends and family members are not the best interpreters because they are not trained to interpret, they may not understand medical terminology, and they can be biased. Additionally, interpreting is an enormous responsibility that should never be placed on a family member or a friend; imagine being a child who must tell a parent that they have a life threatening illness. Over a ten-week period, the PPRC Photography Project trained a group of 11 Barnes-Jewish Hospital (BJH) interpreters and other CDCC staff to photograph and write about their hospital experiences and community interactions. One of the major imperatives interpreters adhere to is a patient's right to privacy. To protect their patient's privacy we used photography to capture the energy and personalities of the individual CDCC team members, photographed their surroundings and showed their photographs along with written descriptions of their experiences.
--Mel Watkin, Instructor and Director, PPRC Photography Project
and Jelena Todic, Training and Education Program Manager, CDCC
Participants:
Elvedin Arnautovic
Deqa Bashir
Belma Begic
Robin Bonn
Sarah Colby
Sylvia Crosby
Eva Enoch
Toni Fuller
Reza Rouie
Jelena Todic
Anna Vigdorchik
Irina Wade
Partners:
Arts + Healthcare, Sarah Colby, Director
Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Barnes-Jewish Hospital Foundation
Center for Diversity and Cultural Competence