Medicine, Arts and Culture Important Intersections for New Advisory Board Member

posted by: Cheryl McLean
Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal

Journal Welcomes Dr. Michael Hutcheon to Advisory Board


The Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal (CCAHTE) has recently announced that Dr. Michael Hutcheon has joined the journal Advisory Board. Dr. Michael Hutcheon is Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto and Deputy Physician-in-Chief for Education, The University Health Network. His research training in respirology was in pulmonary physiology and lung mechanics both at The University of Toronto and the Mayo Clinic.

Dr. Hutcheon is a physician who has explored the intersections of the arts and health. Opera in medical education is a particular interest. He reports, "I have explored the meanings taken on by illnesses and the people who have them when medical information is interpreted in a social or cultural context. We have used opera as the cultural vehicle for this exploration. This has been my primary research interest for the past ten years."

Michael Hutcheon and collaborator Linda Hutcheon, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, University of Toronto, have published a number of articles and three books. Their work on the cultural construction of sexuality, gender and disease in opera has been published in a book entitled Opera: Desire, Disease, Death (1996). Their second book, a study of both the real and the represented operatic body entitled Bodily Charm: Living Opera, was published in 2000. They have also published articles in this area in journals such as The Cambridge Opera Journal, Opera Quarterly, and the University of Toronto Quarterly. Their latest collaborative book called Opera: The Art of Dying, was published by Harvard University Press in 2004. They are currently studying creativity and aging through the late style and later lives of nineteenth and twentieth century opera composers.

"Few art forms are as thoroughly dependent as is tragic opera upon desire, suffering and death as narrative and emotional staples. The body, the live singing body on stage, gives voice to the drama of the suffering person."
Michael Hutcheon, Linda Hutcheon

Read more here

Knowledge Translation Takes Progressive Turn, Mapping New Terrain Through Critical Realism and the Arts

We have been pleased recently to report on the cutting edge creative projects and research currently underway across the country by the respected members of our Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education Journal Advisory Board.

Today we feature recent work by Pia C. Kontos, Research Scientist, Public Health Sciences, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Assistant Professor University of Toronto, who has worked in the areas of research based theatre in traumatic brain injury, embodied selfhood, caregiving and "expressions of personhood" and Alzheimer's Disease.

New work by Pia Kontos Ph.D. and Blake D. Poland Ph.D. (Critical Social Theory, Qualitative Methods, Social Geography) recently published at Biomed Central examines
how, through use of critical realism and the arts, "knowledge translation" can take place in an entirely different way. The paper explores how the arts can offer important and exciting new research and learning possibilities for progressive approaches to KT.

Excerpt from the paper posted at "Implementation Science":

"Mapping New Theoretical and Methodological Terrain for Knowledge Translation: Contributions From Critical Realism and the Arts"

"This paper presents a KT model, the Critical Realism and the Arts Research Utilization Model (CRARUM), that combines critical realism and arts-based methodologies. Critical realism facilitates understanding of clinical settings by providing insight into the interrelationship between its structures and potentials, and individual action. The arts nurture empathy, and can foster reflection on the ways in which contextual factors influence and shape clinical practice, and how they may facilitate or impede change. The combination of critical realism and the arts within the CRARUM model promotes the successful embedding of interventions, and greater impact and sustainability.....CRARUM has the potential to strengthen the science of implementation research by addressing the complexities of practice settings, and engaging potential adopters to critically reflect on existing and proposed practices and strategies for sustaining change."

For full paper visit

Alzheimer's, Drama and Research, New Performance Seeks to Foster Humanistic Approach to Dementia Care Practice

Ethnodramatic Production to Help Enhance Communication and Relationships

CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board members include leaders in the creative arts, health, training and education as well as researchers and scientists working at the intersections of the arts and sciences. Continuing our reporting on CCAHTE Journal Advisory Board members and their ongoing projects this morning, we present information about a new ethnodramatic production by Pia C. Kontos, Ph.D., Research Scientist, Toronto Rehabilitation Institute and Assistant Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences, The University of Toronto.

Below we present brief excerpts from the paper, “Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s, Moving from Ethnographic Texts to Performing Ethnography", Pia C. Kontos and Gary Nagalie, University of Toronto as published in Qualitative Research, 2006. (excerpts published with author permission.)

There were three main goals in developing the ethnodramatic production “Expressions Of Personhood in Alzheimer’s”

1) to provide an accessible presentation of research to audiences of diverse disciplinary backgrounds

2) to recover the experiential immediacy of the body present in the original data-gathering setting, which, in the case of this dramatic production, permits a powerful demonstration of how selfhood is manifested in gesture and action

3) to create a space to engage in a form of social inquiry that resonates simultaneously with critique and the envisioning of new possibilities (Denzin, 1997).

Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s is a production that not only re-presents embodied expressions of selfhood in Alzheimer’s disease, but also critically exposes depersonalizing tendencies of treatment contexts and caregiving relationships that are a consequence of an assumed loss of selfhood that is widely associated with the cognitive deficiencies that lie at the core of dementia. It is our contention that this ethnodramatic production has the potential to open a space for seeing the humanity of persons with dementia, and for envisioning the prospect of a truly humanistic approach to dementia care practice.

As part of the development process Kontos created a partnership with ACT II Studio, a theatre school and creative drama centre for older adults, which is part of the Seniors Education Programs in Ryerson University’s G. Raymond Chang School of Continuing Education, Toronto, Canada. ACT II Studio has a demonstrated history of developing socially relevant dramas for public presentation. Their director, Vrenia Ivonoffski, agreed to provide artistic directorship.

The collaborative process began with a meeting between Kontos, Ivonoffski, and a group of interested actors. All were provided with descriptions of the research participants who feature in the five vignettes. Five actors committed to the project, all having had some personal experience with Alzheimer’s disease, which was agreed upon by Kontos and Ivonoffski as necessary background to sensitize them to the general condition of the illness and, as much
as possible, to the nuances of embodiment in the lived experience of the illness.

The development of Expressions of Personhood in Alzheimer’s is part of a larger research agenda to humanize the practice of dementia care. With the production now complete, we are embarking upon the next stage of our research, which involves the performance of this drama and focus groups we are conducting with nurses and ancillary health care professionals in three different long-term care facilities. It is anticipated that responses to the performance by the focus group participants will serve as a springboard for discussion about embodied selfhood, and how perceiving a broader range of behaviour as meaningful could enhance communication and the development of interpersonal relationships, and how this could ultimately improve the quality of caregiving and the quality of life of those living with Alzheimer’s disease.

Contact info: Pia C. Kontos: Department of Public Health Sciences University of Toronto 11035-550 University Avenue Toronto, ON M5G 2A2CanadaTEL: (416) 597-3422, ext. 7609FAX: (416) 597-7105Email: kontos.pia@torontorehab.on.ca

Qualitative Research http://qrj.sagepub.com/

ACT II Studios, Toronto http://www.ryerson.ca/~act2/activities.html

Social Work Research and Arts, New Initiative University of Toronto

Movement in Arts Research in Canada Gains Momentum
Visionary Initiative Underway in Arts
and Social Work Research
University of Toronto

CCAHTE Journal , (Canadian Creative Arts in Health, Training and Education ), Advisory Board has among its members leaders across disciplines in research, arts, health, training and education. We will be introducing our board members over the coming weeks offering some insight into their projects, research and ongoing work at the intersections of the arts, humanities and sciences.

The following article introduces the work of CCAHTE Advisory Board member Professor Adrienne Chambon.


Professor Adrienne Chambon, Faculty of Social Work,
University of Toronto, has particular interests in institutional
arrangements and subjectivities, critical theory and
developing social science knowledge through the arts.
In a recent article on "Social Work and the Arts" she spoke
about the new initiative at The University
of Toronto, "The Arts and Social Work Research Initiative"
and progressive new advances in arts research in Social Work and
the health sciences.

"More and more our faculty and students have been
making use of the arts in their projects...and we
wanted to build on the momentum and create a
catalyst for this kind of activity. Dr. Chambon
founded the Arts and Social Work Research Initiative
along with Professors Ernie Lightman and Izumi Sakamoto.
"This is the first time a school of Social Work has formalized
the trend to incorporate an arts-based approach
in research. It's a trend not only in
Social Work but also in the health sciences...
we're establishing the faculty as a leader in
this emerging area."

Already three faculty members have received funding
for major arts based research projects and important
new collaborations are underway.

Read more at http://www.socialwork.utoronto.ca/docs/File/Reach_Spring_07.pdf


And today FYI....more Open Access News:
Read "Why Open Medicine?"by James Maskalyk MD,
Faculty of Medicine,
University of Toronto http://www.openmedicine.ca/article/view/74/3
"Open Medicine" Editorial Vol 1, No. l (2007)


OA related QUOTES OF NOTE:

CIHR, Canadian Institutes of Health Research"The mandate of CIHR, as stated in the CIHR Act is: to excel in the creation of new knowledge and its translation into improved health for Canadians, more effective health services and products and a strengthened Canadian health care system.""....CIHR has a fundamental interest in ensuring that research outputs are available to the widest possible audience.CIHR's policy promoting access to research outputs rests on the foundation of the CIHR Act and reflects the core values articulated in CIHR's Blueprint for Health Research and Innovation, the organization's strategic plan, which states that:"the primary purpose of all research in the public domain is the creation of new knowledge in an environment that embodies the principles of freedom of inquiry and unrestricted dissemination of research results."

And from SSHRC, Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada;"Today new information and communication technologies are beginning to change the way research results are published and disseminated. Open access journals published online made available to the reader without charge are allowing for increased and more broad based and efficient access to scholarly literature, and ultimately, knowledge."