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SARBA mission | history | past events With the ever-increasing amount of
technology and scientific information at our fingertips, we as medical
students are often drawn into living a life with our textbook blinders on. We
find ourselves with a seemingly impossible amount of information to learn in
an ever-diminishing amount of time. As a result, we tend not to pursue those
artistic activities that would otherwise bring us great joy and help us to
become more well-rounded individuals. S.A.R.B.A. seeks to provide creative
outlets in the arts for the medical student, allowing each student to enhance
already present talents or to discover new ones. We seek to inspire passion
not only for healing, but for learning and living as well. We strive to...
The following are selected excerpts
from "The Artful Doctor", by Judith Zwolak, originally printed in
Tulanian, Summer 2000. Contact: tulanian@tulane.edu Full article SARBA aims to complement the scientific
and technological focus of medical studies with creative activities. The
program sponsors classes and activities in the performing arts, the culinary
arts, visual arts and writing. Members need not be accomplished artists or
musicians to belong--an active interest in mining one's creative potential is
all that's required. All of this is nearly unimaginable to the
program's benefactor, a Tulane alum whose medical school experience was
vastly different from that of his younger colleagues. A Doctor's Life When Charles Prosser entered Tulane
University School of Medicine in 1940, the normal pressure associated with
medical studies intensified with the possibility that the country would soon
enter the conflict that would become World War II. Working under an
accelerated schedule, Prosser and his fellow students studied from dawn until
late in the night, their medical training taking precedence above everything
else in their lives. "We didn't have any time to do
anything but work and go to sleep," he says. "That's for the birds;
it's not a good way to spend your life, especially if it deprives you of all
the cultural aspects of life." Now retired after 40 years as an
internist in Baton Rouge, La., Prosser and his wife, Louise Peterman Prosser
(N '44), decided to save future Tulane medical students from cultural
deprivation. Together, they donated $60,000 to endow a program that would
expose students to "life-enriching and personality-rounding
humanities." Prosser, who claims his major creative
achievement was the conception of eight children, says the gift was a way to
help medical students as well as their families, their patients and the
community. "I've always had a strong feeling
that in premed and medical school, they trained you but they didn't educate
you," he says. "We decided to try something that would benefit the
students, who we think would be better citizens and better human beings if
they had a little of the humanities in their lives during their school
years." Besides his eight children and 20
grandchildren, Prosser's other creative interests include a passion for
writing. After 32 years as a physician, he began a weekly column called
"A Doctor's Journal" for the Baton Rouge Sunday Advocate. Based primarily on the events in his practice
and his thoughts on medicine and health, the columns have been collected and
published in two books, Second Opinions and Second Thoughts. Although rigorous, Tulane's medical
school attracts and admits students with a wide variety of backgrounds and
abilities. In gross anatomy lab, Juilliard-trained musicians and professional
dancers rub elbows with students straight out of college premed programs. The
fellowship that develops feeds into SARBA's goal of producing more
well-rounded individuals. "Medical school can be a
dehumanizing process," says Vo. "I think being in touch with the
more emotional, more artful side of yourself can be beneficial in the way you
act with people. SARBA is providing students with the opportunities to
develop themselves this way." Creativity and Medicine The conundrum has long intrigued SARBA's
faculty adviser Paul Rodenhauser: Medical education seems to stifle
creativity, yet the creative arts fascinate and permeate the medical
profession. Rodenhauser, professor of psychiatry, assistant dean for academic
and counseling services and director of medical student education for
psychiatry, has written and lectured widely on creativity and medicine. A writer in his spare time and a popular
student adviser, Rodenhauser shares Prosser's goals of encouraging students
to embrace the humanities and creative arts as they study medicine. He knows
firsthand the costs of deferring a creative interest. The structure and discipline of creative
and medical pursuits may complement each other. Painting, playing music and
writing can serve to keep mental muscles in shape for the memorization and
critical thinking necessary in medical school. These activities can also
relieve the stress associated with med school's intense schedule. "There is some therapeutic
effect," Rodenhauser says. "That's part of our intent, to help
people maintain and develop skills in the arts that will serve as a focus
during hard times in training or in medicine." Rodenhauser, who graduated from the
Thomas Jefferson College of Medicine in Philadelphia in 1963, recalls the
punishing, competitive years of his medical education. At Jefferson almost
four decades ago, times were different. There, he lived and breathed medicine
for four years, looking forward to a communal lunch on Sundays as his only
brief respite from classes, clinical rotations and studying. "Ours was a monastic
experience," he says. "Medical education has changed a lot. I think
the fact that activities like SARBA exist tells students that the arts are
important and that everyone can afford the time to take advantage of
them." Full Story Judith Zwolak is an editor in the Office
of University Publications. This article originally appeared in the Summer
2000 issue of Tulanian. Figure Drawing Classes |