Everywhere you go in the hospital, art is all around. Even if you look up. One of the most popular parts of the AIM program is ceiling tile painting. Mullen says she gets as many as 30 requests a week to paint ceiling tiles.
For this hospital program, art is the best medicine.
Any place in the hospital that serves children has decorated ceiling tiles. Patients have painted most of them, but nurses and doctors decorate some. One or two were done by different UF sports teams that came to visit the kids. Although 10 percent of the tiles have to be left unpainted for acoustic reasons, so many have been painted that the AIM crew has been shipping ceiling tiles to other branches of the Shands hospital family, even as far away as Jacksonville.
To walk into neonatal ICU for the first time could be a scary thing for any parent. Seeing that tiny baby for the first time and not knowing how long the road to wellness may be, can be very overwhelming. But walking down the hall toward the neonatal ICU on the third floor, hope hangs on the walls. Photographs of neonatal ICU “graduates” line the hall. Each portrait has the former preemie’s story of survival and life. Another AIM contribution.
One common misconception about AIM is that it is mainly a pediatric program. On the contrary, says Mullen, the program connects with about the same number of children and adults.
“The kids are really great, but when an adult gets that spark to create, it’s so rich,” says Kitakis-Spano. “It’s just so rewarding.”
Another AIM program is the oral history project in which a writer will sit down with elderly patients and record the stories of their lives. These transcriptions are then hung by the entrance to the room so that visitors and doctors can taste a piece of the person’s life. Many of these stories have been used in eulogies at funerals when the storytellers have died.
The AIM experience is completely “patient-driven,” meaning that each patient chooses what he or she wants to do, if anything, on any given day. The artists have the flexibility and supplies to help the patients with whatever they want, and in case normal business hours won’t do, the art room on the bone marrow transplant wing is always open. Patients, family members and friends can come in to get what they want at any time. Paints, markers, crayons and music from Willie Nelson to David Bowie to Vivaldi.
Diane Chapman, an RN in pediatric dialysis for 30 years and a strong supporter of the program says AIM often helps her patients do better in their treatments because the “noise and hubbub helps to take their minds off of what’s going on.” She also says the program helps strengthen bonds between parents who are going through the same things.
“The moms get involved and talk to each other,” Chapman said. “It creates camaraderie.”
Camaraderie is a wonderful thing. So is preoccupation. However, Kitakis-Spano says the best part of the AIM experience is the giving. She had to be talked into coming to work for the program 13 years ago. While she says there have been ups and downs, it has always been worth it. She keeps pictures of patients who have been special to her over the years in her home. As she remembers the names of teddy bears and kids’ favorite colors, her compassion for the patients she works with is apparent. With tears in her eyes, she reveals why AIM is so special.
“These really sick kids come in here, and what they want to do,” she says, “is paint for other people.”