Author: Lucy Mayes
Hush Foundation & Collective Wisdom Consulting, Australia
Edition: Volume 65, Number 3, Special Edition, November 2025
Introduction: This reflective piece explores the intersection of creative arts and medical practice through personal narratives of healthcare professionals who have integrated artistic expression into their education and their own healing work. Centered on the work of the Hush Foundation which has pioneered the use of arts in health and on the story of “the dancing doctor,” Doctor Richard Mayes, who found renewal through dance and subsequently incorporated movement into medical education, the article examines how creative arts serve as both personal medicine for healthcare providers and valuable pedagogical tools for healthcare education, ongoing professional development, and organisational culture change. Drawing on interviews with medical practitioners including Professor Catherine Crock, Dr. Richard Mayes and Dr Glenn Colqhoun,the paper investigates how conventional medical education’s narrow focus on scientific knowledge has contributed to physician burnout, poor workplace cultures and patient safety risks, while neglecting the humanistic aspects of healing. The narratives reveal a consistent pattern: practitioners who learn through or integrate creative expression—whether through dance, poetry, music, or storytelling—report restored compassion, enhanced patient connections, and greater professional sustainability. Supported by emerging neuroscience research on embodied cognition and Dr. Lynne Kelly’s work on knowledge transmission, the paper demonstrates how artistic modalities engage neural pathways that enhance memory and promote holistic understanding. The author advocates for a paradigm shift in medical education that honors both scientific rigor and creative expression, positioning the healthcare provider-patient relationship as a collaborative partnership rather than a hierarchical interaction. This transformation requires rebalancing medical education to cultivate self-awareness, deep listening, and creative engagement—essential skills for addressing modern healthcare challenges that cannot be solved through pharmaceutical intervention alone. The piece concludes that integrating creative arts into medical practice offers a pathway toward sustainable healthcare that nurtures both practitioners and patients.
Keywords: healthcare, health humanities, arts in adult education, theatre for education, social prescribing
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This article is part of AJAL, Volume 65:3 The entire volume is available in .pdf for purchase here.