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The idea of incorporating arts into patient care seems to have begun in 1990 when Mary Rockwood Lane, PhD, RN, and John Graham- Pole, MD, helped create and implement the Arts in Medicine (AIM) program at Shands Hospital at the University of Florida (Lane & Graham-Pole, 1994). Their program incorporated artistic materials and activities into patient care. The program started on the bone marrow transplant unit in 1993, with a goal of reducing morbidity, and improving recovery time, mood, behavior, and quality of life for children and teens during their admission to the hospital. Due to its success, this endeavor has grown into a world-renowned program. As the publicity regarding this successful program grew, other hospitals and patient care programs implemented their own AIM initiatives. These programs tend to include artists, volunteers, and staff who interact with patients at the bedside, employing a broad spectrum of art forms to effect healing. These include visual art, music, dance, storytelling, and acting among others.
After learning of the success of these arts programs, a nurse researcher and a clinical education specialist from a Midwestern hospital wanted to implement a similar program in their institution. The groundwork was laid for a small pilot program that would be limited to one patient care unit, and one population of patients within that unit. Hospitalized adult patients with chronic renal disease were chosen to participate because they experience frequent admissions to the hospital and tend to suffer both fatigue and depression. The choice of this patient population was supported further by the successful results of an observational study of an AIM program in an outpatient hemodialysis unit (Ross, Hollen, & Fitzgerald, 2006). The support of the nurse manager of...