Palliative Arts

Thrive By Arts

As palliative care specialists – with our emphasis on the person instead of just the disease, on the holistic picture instead of just the technical details – we can help keep medicine grounded in the timeless and truly important. Integrating the arts – stories, music, literature, and more – in everything we do is an engaging and effective way to do this. We prioritize cultivating a culture of thriving for our team members. We have crafted and integrated a program we call Thrive by Design, which addresses wellness on multiple levels: systems, team, and personal.

Narrative Pieces by Our Team

We have found that reflective writing is an important way for us to process the work we do, and we take joy in sharing our stories with others. Here are a few recent examples:

Exercising for Wellness During the Pandemic

Insights from “Dying in the Neurological ICU”

What’s the Problem?

Helping Patients Share Disappointing Diagnoses With Loved Ones

Memorial Service

With sponsorship from the Center for Innovative Medicine, the Palliative Care Program and Spiritual Care Department co-hosted our inaugural memorial service in July 2025. At the heart of this service was our commitment to seeing people as whole beings — not defined solely by their diagnoses or final days, but by their stories, relationships, and presence. Through music, poetry, personal reflections, and silence, we wove a collective tapestry of memory, grief, and gratitude. Each note played by Sean Brennan, Peabody musician, each word spoken, reminded us of the beauty and fragility of life — and of our responsibility to carry forward the legacies of those we’ve served.

This service was part of our Thrive by Design initiative, which aims to cultivate wellness and meaning on every level: within our systems, among our teams, and in each of us personally. In creating this space for reflection, we cared not only for the memory of our patients but for the well-being of those who loved and cared for them — and for ourselves.

By integrating the arts into our rituals and rhythms, we stay connected to the soul of medicine: the ability to bear witness, to offer presence, and to honor life in all its stages. This gathering was a sacred reminder that even in death, there is music, there is story, and there is love.

Program Highlights