UAMS College of Medicine student Catalina Terlea discovered the power of art to foster well-being while she was a busy and frequently stressed undergraduate. Now, she is leading a student initiative to help fellow medical students — and eventually patients — experience these benefits.
“I realized that students and patients could really benefit from having a space to engage in art creation to deal with the stress that life and being a student brings,” said Terlea, who is from Little Rock and majored in art and biology at Lyon College in Batesville.
The idea took shape in discussions last year with Tiffany Huitt, Ph.D., an associate professor in the College of Medicine Department of Neuroscience who teaches in the freshman Human Structure course and who, like Terlea, is an artist. “As we were brainstorming how to have a space available for students and patients to engage in art creation, I thought of the UAMS 12th Street Health & Wellness Center, our student-led free clinic,” Terlea said. “For students and the community that the center serves, it can be incredibly hard to afford wellness therapy services and art supplies. We wanted to bridge that gap.”
Terlea worked with Huitt and another Human Structure teacher, assistant professor Erica Malone, Ph.D., along with then 12th Street Center Director Melissa Halverson, Pharm.D., to plan and implement the pilot program. In the initial sessions, Terlea taught a therapeutic drawing and painting technique called neurographic art to student volunteers at center. In addition to creating art, volunteers were trained in how to conduct sessions for others.
Later, Terlea began leading pottery-making sessions at the center. “This is something I dreamed about with Dr. Huitt when we first envisioned the idea for art-based wellness sessions,” she said. “Being able to bring the tactile benefits that pottery-making offers to the expression and release of emotions for student wellness has been very rewarding.”
Tracy Haselow, M.D., an associate professor in the College of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and director of the UAMS Student Wellness Program, attends and provides guidance during the pottery sessions. The ongoing initiative is a collaboration with John Shea, MFA, and the University of Arkansas Little Rock Department of Fine Arts, which fires the pottery in its kilns.
“Our sessions are aimed at stress reduction, emotional awareness and being grounded,” Terlea said. “In our pilot study, we found measurable stress reduction for most of the volunteers who engaged in both the painting and pottery sessions. Most students showed a reduction in what is called state trait anxiety.”
“Additionally, our survey feedback showed that most of our student participants believed that expanding art-based wellness to patients would improve their wellbeing,” Terlea said.
Terlea and her team hope to put the theory into practice by eventually providing art wellness sessions for patients at the center. But the 12th Street center isn’t the only hub of activity for the initiative.
Last August, College of Medicine leaders invited Terlea and six fellow volunteers to conduct a painting session for the entire incoming freshman class during orientation activities. “We used Catalina’s initiative to teach about wellness and as an opportunity for new medical students to practice managing their stress, as well as for community-building,” said Rebecca Latch, M.D., associate dean for student affairs.
In October, Terlea spoke about art and wellness and led a neurographic painting session for more than 30 educators at the Learning Communities Institute national conference hosted by UAMS. She also presented at the Society of Student Run Free Clinics annual conference in Chicago. Terlea’s work was well received, and she is now working on a scholarly article about the initiative with Huitt and Malone.
