VITAL VISIONARIES

According to statistics from the National Institute on Aging, there are now about 45 million Americans over age 60, and the large baby boomer generation promises to swell that demographic even further. This signals an increasing need for quality medical care sensitive to the needs of the “senior citizen.” To help address this need, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) sponsored the initial Vital Visionaries collaboration in 2004 between the American Visionaries Art Museum and John Hopkins University Medical School. The purpose of this pilot project was to facilitate contact between medical students and older adults through art in order to increase the medical students’ awareness and understanding of seniors and to encourage the seniors to explore their creative possibilities. The long-term objective is to positively influence medical students’ attitudes toward geriatrics or general medicine treating elders in their future practices. The program was accompanied by evaluation tools and was fully documented. 

The evaluation methods demonstrated that the program was highly successful in reaching its goals and in 2005-6, the NIA partnered with the Society for the Arts in Healthcare (SAH) to sponsor the replication of the pilot project at four new select sites nationally. CAHRE was selected as one of these sites. The Harn Museum of Art served as our museum collaborator, the UF College of Medicine and Santa Fe Community College Prime Time Institute were involved in recruiting participants.

For 2007-08, CAHRE had once again been asked to coordinate a Vital Visionaries Program with the Harn Museum. The events will take place between March and May and will involve the exhibit: Paradigms and the Unexpected: Modern and Contemporary Art from the Shey Collection. 

For more information on the 2008 program click here.

To view a video documentary of the Vital Visionaries Florida 2006 program: click here.

For a preview of the exhibit that is the basis of the Vital Visionaries Florida 2008 program: click here. 

Map to Harn Museum of Art: http://campusmap.ufl.edu/

Contact UF’s Vital Visionaries Coordinator: drdance@ufl.edu

Vital Visionaries is funded by the National Institute on Aging/National Institutes of Health, with additional support from UF’s Division of Geriatric Medicine, and Division of Career Development and Education