Welcome to the latest issue of NexBioHealth. You’re in for a treat. Our theme is “The Art of Healing: Where Medicine Meets Creativity.” In my time to date as editor of our magazine, and in a similar role at its predecessor, the World Asia Medical Journal, I don’t think I have ever had as much fun putting pieces together.

In training, and often in practice, acquiring and honing the knowledge and skills needed to provide competent, compassionate health care is so exacting that it is often exceedingly difficult to do anything else. In this issue, we introduce you to professionals who have managed to practice their artistry even while caring for the sick and injured. You’’ read about the contributions of artists and the arts both to the education of health professionals and to the care of patients. Some of those you’ll meet in these pages treat patients with recreational therapy, music therapy, or art therapy. This kind of interdisciplinary focus is part of what makes NexBioHealth such a unique, lively, and valuable publication. It’s an antidote to narrowness.

Among those you’ll learn about an artist who works with virtual reality in palliative care, an actor who teaches young doctors about communicating and relating to others, and a neurologist who collaborated with his own five-year-old son to write a book for children on how even they can help their grandparents and other seniors by recognizing some of the classic signs of stroke. We provide here stories on art
in the service of meditation, digital images illustrating the value of sleep and of sleep medicine, and a pediatric fellow who engages in creative writing, poetry, and songwriting. It’s inspiring to learn of pediatric oncology patients who join in plays, or painting, or dance. You’ll learn about narrative medicine and the benefits it confers, and wonder afresh on how anatomy gives rise to splendid visual art. My good friend, our publisher Chul Hyun, MD, PhD, reviews a book about physicians who blend the practice of medicine with the performance of classical music.

A surprisingly large number of med schools now offer arts programs, and they seem to be joined by more and more each year. If I may be permitted a wee bit of hometown puffing, that of Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), here in Richmond, may be among the most vibrant. In a real innovation, VCU endocrinologist John Nestler, MD, formerly Chief of Medicine, served as physician in residence at the School of Art, “one of the first residencies of its kind in an arts school.” VCU’s health professional schools have formed alliances with VCUarts, VCU’s art and design school, blossoming in collaborations among the VCU School of Nursing, the Department of Art Education, and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.

Among the many impressive figures featured here is Lisa Wong, MD, pediatrician and musician.

The child of an immigrant to these shores, whose own story is a classic in itself, she was part of a family string quartet as a child. As an adult, she plays with the Longwood Symphony Orchestra, the orchestra of Boston’s medical community. Dr. Wong serves on the boards of the Boston Public Schools Arts Initiative and of the Conservatory Lab Charter School, to ensure that children in Boston have access to the arts. In this issue, Dr. Wong tells us about her book Scales to Scalpels: Doctors Who Practice the Healing Arts of Music and Medicine, a “bouquet” to her colleagues in the LSO.

Not all of our pieces are art-specific. In keeping with the magazine’s emphasis on variety, we feature a piece by an Interventional cardiologist on the value of a mentor, a story on Med Ed Day, highlighting advances in medical pedagogy, and a senior surgeon’s perspective on value-based care and preventive medicine, contributed by Dr. Alex Kim.

The smorgasbord awaits. Eat hearty.

Joseph P. McMenamin, MD, JD, FCLM