On Wednesdays, the second-floor lobby at UNM Hospital becomes a concert hall for an hour.
Six weeks ago, the microphone belonged to The Duke City Swampcoolers, a UNMH doctor-duo. Two weeks later, Matt Beechold took the stage by himself.
This week, the soothing soprano strains of UNM opera students filled the impromptu arena.
The Wednesday concert series is a component of the Arts-in-Medicine program - an innovative method that combines music, writing and massage to heal patients with acute, chronic and terminal illnesses, as well as the people who provide them with care.
"The philosophy of care is different from the philosophy of cure," Program Director Patricia Repar said while watching several hospital employees and patients work on a drawing exercise during the concert. "It's partly because of the music, but, really, it's a whole different framework. I don't even dress like a health care professional."
Live harp music in the Emergency Waiting Room and Intensive Care Unit, an open art studio and an art review for patients are among the program's other features.
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The program's method uses "creative encounters ... to provide moments of pause, where the patient is asked to stop, reflect and release," said Repar, a native Canadian who studied palliative care at Niagara College.
She said the idea for the program came to her after suffering through a near-death illness in Quito, Ecuador, where she was living and teaching during the mid 1990s.
Other participants in the program include local artists, UNM College of Fine Arts and School of Medicine faculty and students, Health Sciences Center employees, patients, their families and volunteers.
Repar, also an assistant professor within the Music department, receives referrals from the hospital's charge nurses, then goes to patients' rooms for one-on-one healing sessions, she said. Her usual shift is from 8 p.m. to 2 a.m.
On Tuesday night, for example, Repar visited a 64-year-old Mexican woman who had been alone in the hospital for nearly two months. Repar said she played Mexican folk songs for the woman - and saw great success.
"All I did was go in there and say, 'I don't care about anything except being with you right now,'" Repar said. "It really creates an environment of support and friendship."
Caring for doctors and nurses is just as important as caring for the patients, Repar said.
"It's hard when you're dealing with life and death situations all the time," she said. "You need to take a moment to replenish, instead of running around like Energizer Bunnies."
Repar said she frequently works with drug addicts. Many of her referrals for that population have come from Clinical Nurse Researcher Kathy Bushnell-Lopez.
Bushnell-Lopez recalled an instance of a man who had been addicted to heroin for 22 years and had stayed at the hospital for a long time.
"Patricia came in and saw him and just worked wonders with him," Bushnell-Lopez said.
So-called alternative medicine is important to the future of health care, she said, but what's lacking is the research and documentation needed to secure funding for programs like Arts-in-Medicine.
Bushnell-Lopez is writing a grant - requesting a yet-undetermined amount of money - aimed at securing funds for the program through the federal government.
"As the years go on, people will see that this works," she said.
Arts-in-Medicine began at the Sandia Hospice in Las Vegas, N.M., four or five years ago, Repar said. It has been at UNMH since spring of 2002.
"It seems like so much longer than that," Repar said.
Funding for the program, which she said is secure through next semester, also comes from the New Mexico Arts, the College of Fine Arts, the Music department and UNM Hospital.
The program's primary focus is to help the health care community re-think how it works with patients, she said, stopping for a moment to clap for an opera singer.
"We need to re-think death and dying, too," Repar said. "It's about the life cycle, and the biggest part is at the end."
