Welcome to the Georgetown Lombardi Arts & Humanities Program (AHP) newsletter. In this week's issue, we spotlight program manager, Abigail Perelman, who will be attending medical school at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. Also, faculty director, Julia Langley recently presented research at the Association for Psychological Science Conference. We provide a recap of her talk.

As she Prepares for Medical School, AHP Program Manager, Abigail Perelman, Reflects

Abby Perelman and Deborah Riley perform during the Day of Dance at MedStar Georgetown University Hospital, 2023

Abigail Perelman joined the AHP last summer as program manager. Almost exactly a year later, we are pleased to announce that she will begin medical school at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. As she describes below, Abby performed numerous tasks during her time with us, including offering art activities to patients and movement breaks to hospital staff. She is also part of an ongoing research project looking at the benefits of music in the ICU. We look forward to staying connected with Abby and wish her all the best in her new adventure.

First, congratulations! Are you excited about starting medical school soon at Penn?

I'm excited. I'm terrified. All of the emotions. I'm excited about opportunity to go to Penn and explore so many areas that aligns with my interests in medicine. They have medical humanities classes, they have nutrition classes, they have scholarly concentrations, they have a club on dance and health, which is very up my alley.

As you reflect on your experiences as program manager for the AHP over the past year, what memories will you take with you to medical school and beyond?

Most of my time has been spent working behind-the-scenes on projects for AHP and collecting and processing data for research, but I also participated as an artist offering dance and knitting for patients and hospital staff. On the research side, I became involved with the music and health research project last June, shortly after arriving at AHP. I'm very interested in brain activity and arts in health, having completed a thesis at Brown University on early detection of Alzheimer's and neurodegeneration. As part of the research team led by Julia Langley and Jagmeet Kanwal, Jo Mallard and I consent patients and collect data. We are focusing on liver transplant patients who can experience delirium due to over-medication, sedation, or pre-existing neurological issues. We partnered with medical musician Andrew Shulman to play curated music sets for these patients using a Bluetooth speaker. I’ll continue helping with data analysis and paper development, while I’m in medical school.

How did you incorporate dance into your work in the hospital?

I offered stretch breaks to nurses and participated in this year’s Day of Dance. I’ve been a dancer since I was two years old. Dance is a safe-haven for me that brings joy. Dance is a way to take a step back from stress. Giving other people the opportunity to find that for themselves meant a lot. One example of this was during the Day of Dance program. I could tell that people were leaning into it. Nurses danced with us, patients came to the edges of their rooms to dance or peek through the door. We reframed the hospital space, which I think made a big difference. I’m also a knitter. I took Claire Wagner’s online knitting courses and worked in the hospital with Project Knitwell. I found that while dance builds community, knitting provides individual connection. Many of the knitting requests I received were for people on the maternity ward, or on bed rest. As I sat with them, we would knit and talk about patterns that they wanted to make, as well as about work, family and being in a hospital. Overall, as I worked in various roles at Lombardi, it became clear that the arts enable us to embrace one another’s humanity inside the hospital. I'm grateful because very few people can say that they’ve had this kind of experience. It gives me a sense of hope when I think about the medical field.

Julia Langley Presents on NEA-Funded Research about Music and Healing

Julia Langley presents AHP research at the Association for Psychological Science Conference.

In May, Faculty Director Julia Langley presented research on the AHP's National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) funded project, "Recovery in the ICU: An Investigation of Music-induced Physiologic Changes that Promote Healing," at the Association for Psychological Science Conference. Langley was invited to join the panel by moderator Sunil Iyengar, director of the NEA's Office of Research & Analysis.

After inviting the audience to join her in a brief stretch break, Langley spoke about the research project. The purpose of the study is to explore neurological and physiological changes resulting from musical presentations in patients who are recovering from liver transplant surgery. Participants receive three sessions of recorded music daily, over the course of two to three days. The music - selected, arranged and performed by medical musician Andrew Schulman - includes a wide range of acoustic tunes from Bach's “Prelude in D,” to Gershwin's “Someone to Watch Over Me,” to “Here, There and Everywhere” by Lennon and McCartney.

The experimental procedure consists of pre-operation validated questionnaires, and post-operative collection of cortisol samples before and after music presentation as well as physiological monitoring (heart rate, respiration rate, temperature, electrodermal activity, and oxygen saturation levels) collected before, during, and after music is played.

While it is still too early in the research to form conclusions from the data, the anecdotal evidence is exciting. The AHP looks forward to completing the study in December 2023, analyzing the data and presenting what the research team finds.

We are thrilled that Abby Perelman will continue to work on data analysis even as she moves on to medical school. Please stay tuned!

The Georgetown Lombardi Arts & Humanities Program (AHP) promotes a holistic approach to healthcare for patients, caregivers, physicians, nurses, staff members, and students through the use of music, dance, expressive writing, and visual arts. These therapeutic modalities are normally provided throughout the MedStar Georgetown University Hospital in Washington, D.C., and online through Eventbrite courses. The AHP is a program of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center.