Artistic Interventions in Cancer Care: Orlando Health Cancer Institute's Evidence-Based Arts in Medicine Program

Integrative medicine is a holistic approach to cancer care, combining typical Western health care practices with complementary, evidence-based treatments outside the medical paradigm. Orlando Health Cancer Institute, a multisite cancer program across central and west Florida, prides itself on offering compassionate care, and fulfills that commitment in part by embracing a holistic approach through its Integrative Medicine program. Patients can opt into services like yoga, acupuncture, meditation, and more, while receiving cutting-edge treatments such as proton therapy and tumor-infiltrating lymphocyte (TIL) therapy. The goal is to treat the whole patient, including their psychosocial needs, to improve overall quality of life while undergoing cancer treatment and beyond into survivorship.

One of the most popular offerings among patients is Arts in Medicine, a program that brings creative arts to patients, survivors, and caregivers through both formal classes and informal sessions in the chemotherapy infusion suite. Practicing art during treatment is a research-backed approach to managing stress and pain,¹ while also offering distraction, entertainment, and a creative outlet.

Oncology Issues spoke with Brittney Reid, MFA, artist-in-residence of Orlando Health Cancer Institute’s Arts in Medicine program, about the evidence-based benefits of art for patients with cancer and the operational success of this dedicated art program within the cancer center.

Staffing and Operating Arts in Medicine

In 2011, the cancer center received a $16,000 grant from the nonprofit Livestrong to offer a handful of art classes to patients. When the Integrative Medicine program launched a few years later in 2014, Arts in Medicine was one of the first available services. This larger department provided the capacity to expand into additional artistic mediums, including painting, sculpting, jewelry making, and more, and to reach more participants. Today, 15 years after the first art class, Arts in Medicine is funded by a collaboration with the Orlando Health Foundation and is offered free of charge to patients, caregivers, and survivors.

Reid came to Orlando Health Cancer Institute as an intern in 2022 while pursuing her graduate degree in fine arts at the University of Central Florida. She was later hired to stay as a full-time employee and now manages an intern of her own. Together they make up a small yet impactful team, spending most of their time working with individuals one-on-one in patient rooms and chemotherapy infusion suites. Art projects are tailored to each patient’s interests, needs, and abilities, including accommodations to make the experience accessible.

“You have to be flexible when working with patients who have limitations,” Reid said. For example, chemotherapy can make patients sensitive to strong smells, so watercolor paints and plasticine clay (both of which are odorless and easy to clean) are favored over more pungent oil paints and natural clays. For those with limited dexterity in their hands due to treatment-related neuropathy, Reid offers collage supplies, including scissors and glue, which can be much easier to wield than a paintbrush.

Jewelry making is another popular medium among patients, offered through small group classes. Even with small beads and specialized tools, it is important to meet patients where they are. For those in the infusion suite, prepared kits include enough material to make 1 or 2 pairs of earrings, with everything sterilized and ready for creation.

Caregivers have also reported benefits from participating in the Arts in Medicine program. While they may not be seeking physical pain relief, the emotional support still resonates.

Rooting Artistic Interventions in Evidence

Art therapy emerged as a clinical discipline in the 1940s, built on a long history of art as a healing modality across cultures and spanning centuries.² The Arts in Medicine program does not adhere to the clinical techniques of art therapy, which uses an artistic practice to target specific therapeutic goals. Rather, art is offered as recreation for anyone who is interested. Patients can become fully immersed in the activity, which Reid refers to as a “flow state,” distracted from their treatment and associated mental distress. “It allows the clinical setting to be a different kind of environment and to bring comfort for the patients,” she said.

While the program does not use art therapy modalities, it is still evidence-based. Orlando Health Cancer Institute ran a clinical research study in 2025 to quantify the benefits of the Arts in Medicine program for patient well-being. Fifty-four patients took a 90-minute watercolor painting class with an artist while receiving their infusions. Pre- and post-class surveys asked them to rate their pain and stress on a scale from 1 to 10. The average scores for both metrics were reduced by the end of the session, with pain dropping by almost 2 points and stress decreasing by more than 3 points.¹

The neural mechanisms responsible for this pain reduction are not fully understood, but are likely tied to psychosocial well-being. Practicing art has been found to release dopamine and engage both the medial prefrontal cortex and amygdala, all of which can reduce anxiety.³ When patients are anxious and anticipating adverse effects, physical pain often feels more intense. Reid explained that when anxiety is lessened through the distraction or joy of practicing art, the perception of pain “softens.”

Advancing Patient Well-Being Through Art

Much of the growth and success of the Arts in Medicine program has been driven by direct feedback from patients and providers. Reid shared a meaningful example in which artistic intervention supported a patient and made a significant impact on both him and his care team.

Reid worked with a patient at the cancer center who was receiving treatment for a throat tumor. The patient experienced pain while speaking, creating significant barriers in communicating with his family and care team. Over several sessions, Reid identified the patient’s preferred artistic mediums. He created book page poems, in which he circled a few words on a page torn from a novel that, when strung together, became a line of prose. The rest of the page was colored in with black marker, hiding the excess words to reveal a poem. Another of his favorite activities was Zentangle art, a style of drawing using repetitive lines and geometric shapes.

With consistent art sessions, his family noticed improvements in his pain, mental health, and quality of life. At home, this patient often wrote on paper to communicate rather than using his voice. While he was drawing, he openly chatted and laughed with Reid, seeming to forget about the pain. Practicing art gave him a new medium of expression and made speech more accessible.

This is just 1 of several stories Reid shared from patients who have appreciated and benefited from the program. Others have said they look forward to chemotherapy days as an opportunity to create art, have found unexpected gratitude in their cancer journey after discovering a new passion, and have even shared that the joy they experienced through the program saved their life.

Caregivers have also reported benefits from participating in the Arts in Medicine program. While they may not be seeking physical pain relief, the emotional support still resonates. “For a moment, they’re not a caregiver. They’re able to be an artist. They’re able to just be whatever it is that their original role was, whether it’s a spouse, a friend, a daughter, or a son,” Reid said. Those moments are important for fostering resilience in caregivers, who are at high risk of burnout.

Celebrating Impact Through Community Engagement

Each spring, the Arts in Medicine program culminates in a gallery show in Orlando, Florida. At the gallery’s opening night celebration, patients and their families get to interact outside the hospital, mingling with professionals in the Orlando art scene and selling their work to benefit the Arts in Medicine program. “They’re not patients anymore,” Reid said. “At that point, they’re artists.”

In 2025, the event was titled “Metamorphosis,” and guests were greeted by a 5-foot-tall butterfly mounted on the wall of the gallery. Crafted from aluminum chicken wire, the sculpture held a beaded charm in each open space, created by more than 100 patients and caregivers over the span of a year. Patients, family members, health care workers, and art patrons formed a line to take photos in front of the butterfly, each guest stepping briefly into its wings. Flanked by the work of dozens of artists was a strong community of individuals whose lives had been changed by cancer, but also by the transformative and healing impact of art.

Gabrielle Stearns is associate editor of Oncology Issues and clinical content coordinator for the Association of Cancer Care Centers in Rockville, Maryland.

References

1. Kelley VJ, Galvis HG, Proctor MD, Broome BJ. Arts in Medicine for the Reduction of Pain and Stress in Cancer Patients During Chemotherapy. J Pain Symptom Manage. 2025;69(5):546–551. doi:10.1016/j.jpainsymman.2025.01.009

2. Junge MB. History of Art Therapy. In: Gussak DE, Rosal ML, eds. The Wiley Handbook of Art Therapy. John Wiley & Sons. 2015:7–16.

3. Barnett KS, Vasiu F. How the arts heal: a review of the neural mechanisms behind the therapeutic effects of creative arts on mental and physical health. Front Behav Neurosci. 2024;18:1422361. doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2024.1422361