Gathering of Kindness and the arts changing healthcare culture
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by Lucy Mayes
Returning from Maternity leave after her fifth child, Dr Catherine Crock AM, a paediatric physician at the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne, became increasingly distressed at witnessing some of the experiences of the children in her care who were receiving treatment for Leukaemia. “On my first morning back on the job I thought, what is going on here?” says Catherine. “We were holding these kids down, performing lumbar punctures, without anaesthetic. These children had to go through this not just once, some of them thirty or more times over three years, and they’re screaming in the waiting room because they know what’s about to happen when they come in. I’ve always been really shy and never spoken up, never made a fuss or anything, but this was a turning point for me. I just felt something had to be done and that it was urgent.”
This turning point moment led Catherine to speak to patients and their families and together, to advocate for enhanced kindness and person-centred care in the hospital. The patients and families shared rich insights and ideas and many simple, positive changes resulted. Dr Crock went on to found the Australian Centre for Patient and Family Centred care, and the Hush Foundation in 2000, whose mission was to transform healthcare cultures with kindness. An early initiative of the Foundation was to bring composers and musicians into health and care environments. Once they had experienced hospitals, psychiatric wards, or oncology rooms firsthand, the musicians wrote original compositions of music designed to reduce stress and anxiety in these stressful environments. Since that early beginning, Hush has worked with over 100 of Australia’s top composers and musicians to produce 20 albums of original music. Hush music is played in waiting rooms, operating theatres, staff rooms and homes around Australia and the world.
Catherine was still meeting with some resistance to the patient and family perspectives and initiatives, and in 2010 she travelled on a Churchill Fellowship to examine patient-centred care around the world. An influential leader in the space, physician Lucian Leape, said to her: “One of the greatest things getting in the way of patient centred care is how staff are travelling and the way staff treat each other.” It was no secret that healthcare workers were suffering higher than average rates of emotional distress and burnout, and that their workplaces were high stress with sometimes toxic and bullying behaviours.
On her return, Catherine expanded the Hush repertoire to include a greater focus on healthcare cultures and education, by collaborating with renowned Australian playwright Alan Hopgood AM. They wrote three plays on healthcare culture, including one about Aged Care, which have been performed over 200 times in care settings in Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong and the USA to highlight issues around staff culture, behaviour, wellbeing, and safety.
The Hush Foundation has also steadily grown a social movement called the Gathering of Kindness. The Gathering uses the arts: music, theatre, dance, storytelling and other innovative techniques to spark important conversations, insights and change. The key thing is that everyone has a voice. Launched with an in-person live (un)conference in 2016, the Gathering of Kindness quickly grew into a multi-dimensional program able to be delivered remotely and internationally. Catherine felt that instead of hosting conferences on bullying and toxic cultures, she would instead take a strengths-focussed approach and invite all those involved in the system to come together to envision and co-create a kinder culture - kind to those working in it and kind to those receiving care.
There is a growing body of research that highlights the impact of kindness, compassion, respect, and good communication on better health outcomes for residents, families, patients and staff. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has brought new anxiety, stress and challenges to our health care workers. Now more than ever, kindness and a more human-centred approach is needed in the healthcare system.
Last month, the Hush team delivered their biggest ever Gathering of Kindness, a joyous hybrid (online and in person) event which was designed to be an antidote to burnout and a nurturing gift to all involved in healthcare. Featured were an audio-visual art exhibition by Anjaq entitled ‘Human’, the Dancing Doctor (aka Dr Richard Mayes) and his ‘Silvertops’ all ages, all abilities dance therapy crew, Invictus Quartet, the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s Scrub Choir and two original health theatre productions.
Audiences also enjoyed a live, sneak preview of some of the singles from Hush’s newest (and 20th) Album, Gratitudes, by renowned classical guitarist Slava Grigoryan, who composed the album during one of the Covid-19 lockdowns as a note of thanks to all healthcare workers during these challenging times. A 7m x 3m collaborative artwork led by Aboriginal artist Aunty Rochelle Patten was another feature of the event, with the artwork now set to travel with the Hush team to hospitals and other health and care settings around Australia to spread the message of kindness. The event also took a deep look at structural unkindness and will be producing a White Paper with insights as to systems and organisational measures to address workplace stress and its consequent flow on effects for the safety and wellbeing of both patients and staff alike.
Gathering of Kindness online presenter Dr Chris Turner, a Consultant in Emergency Medicine and advocate for Civility in Medicine reflected on why the Gathering of Kindness is such an important initiative:
"There are so many levels... When we're kind to each other, we open our bandwidth and we help people to perform at their very best. There's a ton of evidence on that. Kindness pays."
Recordings of the livestream and online Gathering of Kindness 2022 program are available for twelve months. They can be purchased, along with Hush Music, and more information on the Hush Foundation and the Gathering of Kindness can be found here: www.hush.org.au, www.gatheringofkindness.org.
Written by Lucy Mayes, Manager Engagement, Hush Foundation and author: Beyond the Stethoscope – Doctors’ stories of reclaiming hope, heart and healing in medicine (www.lucymayes.com)