NEW YORK.- The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC) and the Society for Arts in Healthcare are hosting a one-day symposium, “The Value and Importance of Art in Health Care,” on March 7, 2008, at MoMA in New York City. The keynote address on “Creativity and the Brain” will be delivered by renowned neurologist and writer, Oliver Sacks, MD, author of Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Hat For His Wife, and Other Clinical Tales and Musicophilia: Tales of Music and The Brain.

“The Museum is delighted to join with Vanderbilt University and the Society for the Arts in Healthcare to initiate a dialogue among an impressive array of artists, educators, researchers and physicians. This symposium provides an extraordinary opportunity to further thinking on the ways in which cultural institutions can contribute to this field,” said Wendy Woon, Edward John Noble Foundation Deputy Director for Education at MoMA.

Health care decision-makers, museum professionals, arts administrators, artists, architects, designers, development officers and others interested in exploring the aesthetic and therapeutic benefits of art in health care are invited to attend the symposium, which will feature experts on a variety of topics relating to the potential benefits of art in health care. Topics will include model programs initiated by health care organizations and cultural institutions in the United States and abroad; the perspectives of artists and physicians; current research being conducted in the field; and the financial aspects of exhibiting art in healing environments.

Among the experts in the fields of art and science who will participate in panels and discussions are Bill Ivey, former Chairman of the National Endowment for the Arts; photographer Nicholas Nixon; and Leonard Shlain, MD, author and Chairman of Laparoscopic Surgery at the California Pacific Medical Center. Symposium panels will present multiple viewpoints on the ways in which art impacts health, both within and outside of hospital settings.

“There is very good evidence that engaging patients in art and music is a way to make the burden of illness and periods of care more tolerable,” said Harry R. Jacobson, MD, Vice Chancellor for Health Affairs at Vanderbilt University.

This is the second art in health care symposium organized by VUMC, in conjunction with the Society for Arts in Healthcare. MoMA is participating this year as part of The MoMA Alzheimer’s Project, a two-year initiative to nationally expand the museum’s outreach program for people with Alzheimer’s disease made possible by MetLife Foundation.

Two pre-symposium workshops will be held on March 6: “How to Start a Visual Art Program in a Health Care Setting” and “Making Art Accessible to People with Dementia.”

Cost for the symposium day is $300. There is an additional $50 fee for the pre-symposium workshops.