Cheryl L. McLean
  • Cheryl McLean
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contact:  CherylMcLean7007@gmail.com             CherylMcLean.com                artinpandemic.com
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About the book "Creative Arts in Humane Medicine"

"McLean’s book should be a must read for those responsible for medical education...so that in the end the human connection between healers and those they heal is enhanced."

 Michael Gordon, MD, MSc, FRCPC -- Medical Program Director, Palliative Care, Baycrest
Geriatric  Health Care System; Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
  

 
"Using the arts to teach and stimulate empathy contributors argue for training in empathy in medical schools as an essential tool in patient care.   Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a reference book for medical educators.  The book contains many interesting ideas for those who wish to both enliven and deepen their teaching of undergraduates... makes a strong case for broadening the base from which we as medical professionals live and work."  

 South African Medical Journal, SAMJ, Vol. 104, Nov. 2014, reviewer Dr. Dawn Garisch

From the Canadian Medical Association Journal CMAJ  review Feb. 2015
"How do the creative arts help practitioners enhance clinical and relational skills? The amply credentialed contributors to "Creative Arts in Humane Medicine" — physicians, medical students, allied health professionals and artists — provide some answers... Gifted voices from both medicine and the humanities have contributed to Creative Arts in Humane Medicine in McLean’s ensemble effort to show us different paths to the future." 
Dr. Vincent Hanlon, Physician and Family Support Program, Alberta Medical Association - 

************

​Cheryl L. McLean M.A. Independent Scholar,  Publisher/Editor, Writer,  Researcher/Ethnodramatist (masters Creative Arts Therapies, Concordia University, Montreal, BA Social Sciences, University of Western Ontario, London) has edited three books on arts and research, Creative Arts in Humane Medicine (2014),  Creative Arts for Community and Cultural Change (2011) McLean, C. L., & Kelly, R. (Eds.) and Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice (2010)  McLean, C. L., & Kelly, R. (Eds.) Brush Education Inc., Edmonton.  She was founder and publisher of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice (IJCAIP) with international board members across disciplines, leaders in the arts, education, healthcare, design and business.  She taught the courses Problems in Education Research in Creativity Summer Institute, MEd Acadia University, Nova Scotia, Creativity in Death and Bereavement, University of Western Ontario, London, and has facilitated the workshop, Living Stories for Hope and Change for allied health professionals, physicians, psychiatrists, mental health counsellors as well as sex abuse survivors. She speaks widely about the arts in research and was a guest presenter for The American Medical Association (AMSA) Medical Humanities scholars’ program web podcast and has presented keynotes for The Alberta Psychiatric Association, Congress of The Humanities (CASSW) University of Western Ontario, and Acadia University Summer Institute among others and has helped advance the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice in leading international journals (The Advancement of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy,V. 12, No. 2, 2015).  She is also an ethnodramatist and studied acting under the direction of Muriel Gold, former AD of The Saidye Bronfman Theatre, Montreal.  Her research took place while working as a group therapist in residential homes where a number of her clients were Holocaust survivors. She wrote and performed the solo ethnodrama Remember Me for Birds about aging, mental health and autonomy which premiered at McGill Medical School.  She has written and performed plays based on dietetic research about aging, care and food issues.  She is currently writing a new book, The Walkers: Contemporary Stories of Life in Transition Challenge and Change with essays that explore the contemporary realities of modern living, change and survival.

Recent 
Invited to Penn State University to present a talk entitled  "Evidence of the Creative Arts in Health and Interdisciplinary Practice" at the April 2020 Arts, Design and Health Research Summit to be held in honour of American National Health Week and World Health Day.  In addition, during the research summit she will be performing monologues and original ethnodramatic work.

​Contact:  CherylMcLean7007@gmail.com, London, Ont. Canada


OTHER SELECTED PRESENTATIONS

Acadia University, Lower Denton Theatre, "Who Cares?: An Ethnodrama about Aging, Caregiving and Nutrition" Writer/director, September 23, 2015.  https://agingandfood.wordpress.com/

Acadia University, School of Nutrition, Lecture/presentation, The Arts and Nutrition Education, September 22, 2015.

Acadia University Summer Institute Conference 2014,  Keynote speaker, "Navigating Tides of Challenge and Change with Creative Arts in Research and Practice", July 4, 2014.

Alberta Psychiatric  Association 2014 Scientific Conference,  Keynote speaker, "Living Stories of Hope and Change" Rimrock Resort Hotel, Banff Alberta, March 27 - 30, 2014.

American Medical Students Association AMSA  Medical Humanities Scholars' Program, Guest facilitator, Webinar, Perceptions of Physicians in Literature and the Arts:  Arts Alive and Thriving in Medical Education, March 21, 2013.

Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia, "A new Pond of Interdisciplinary Opportunity, The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Research, Keynote Address, Arts Based Research Network (Faculties of Arts, Professional Studies and Science), October 5, 2012.

Windermere Manor, London, "Creating and Living Stories for Hope and Change" workshop/ creative arts in research and practice for community and cultural change for nurses/social service and community workers

University of British Columbia, Faculty of Creative and Critical Studies, Okanagan Campus, "Creative Arts in Action  for Community and Cultural Change" presentation

Creative City Summit Un-conference, Museum London, Research and Arts in Action for Community and Cultural Change, presentation

Dietitians of Canada, National Conference, Montreal,  Crafting Stories for Change in Dietetics panel/presentation

Simcoe Muskoka Palliative Care Network, Orillia Ontario, Living Stories of Hope and Change, keynote 

King's University College, University of Western Ontario, Bereavement Services London,   "Living Stories of Hope and Change" keynote

Canadian Association of Schools of Social Work Educators National Conference CASSWE, Congress of the    Humanities, Kings University College,  University of Western Ontario, "Ethnodrama Remember Me for Birds" keynote

Lakehead University, Thunder Bay, Centre for Research and Education in Aging and Health, keynote and performance

McGill Medical School, Montreal,  Interdisciplinary Geriatric Seminar, "Ethnodrama Remember Me for Birds", keynote

Rene Cassin Institute of Social Gerontology, Montreal,   Ethnodrama,  "Remember Me for Birds" performance

Canadian Counselling Association National Conference, Winnipeg, Ethnodrama, "Remember Me for Birds" performance


​Recent Publications:

Intersections of Research, Ethnodrama and Nutrition Education, Writing "Who Cares?" an ethnodrama about aging, caregiving, love and survival, International Journal of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Is. 12, Winter Supplementary Issue, access at http://www.ijcaip.com/archives/IJCAIP-12-paper2.html

McLean, C.L. (2015)  The Advancement of the Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, Cheryl L. McLean, pg. 149-151, Volume 12, #2, Journal of Curriculum and Pedagogy, Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group,  http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/15505170.2015.1055403

McLean, C.L. (2014), Remember me for birds, An ethnodrama about aging, mental health and autonomy (pg. 14 - 38) in C.L. McLean (Ed.), Creative Arts in Humane Medicine, Brush Education.

Recent awards

Harrison McCain Foundation Award, Visiting Professorship
, Acadia University, 2015,  Division of Research and Graduate Studies,
Project title:  Lived family experiences of feeding elderly relatives, teaching, symposia and keynote, consulting with faculty and students, ethnodramatic script writing, publishing and dissemination of research results


C.L. McLean presentations, meetings and/or travel:


March, Banff, Alberta Psychiatric Assn.

April-May Greece

June Vancouver

July 2 - 18 Acadia University, Wolfville N.S.

November, Ottawa, Mexico

January 2015, Costa Rica

March 2015, Cuba

June 2015, Scotland

July 2015, Acadia University, Wolfville N.S.

September 2015, Acadia University, Wolfville N.S.

October 2015, Florida

November 2015, Harrison McCain Foundation, Toronto, Ont.
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Parksville, Vancouver Island, B.C.

January 2016, Willemstad, Curacao

March 2016, Isla Mujeres, Mexico

May 2016, Gibsons B.C., Vancouver

September, 2016, Wolfville, Nova Scotia

November 2016, Isla Mujeres, Mexico

January 2017, Southern Caribbean

March 2017, Akumal Mexico

February 2018, Puerto  Vallarta, Mexico

*March 2018, Malta

May 2018, Mayan Riviera, Mexico

* In addition to travel in her work and teaching Cheryl has  also traveled extensively throughout Canada and abroad and recently returned from a month in Malta acting as a  travel host for Merit Travel.  Working as a couple hosting team with her husband Don they joined 12 Canadians exploring  Malta and surrounding islands. 

Recommendations:


Book Reviews

 
From the Canadian Medical Association Journal CMAJ  review Feb. 2015

 "How do the creative arts help practitioners enhance clinical and relational skills? The amply credentialed contributors to "Creative Arts in Humane Medicine" — physicians, medical students, allied health professionals and artists — provide some answers... Gifted voices from both medicine and the humanities have contributed to Creative Arts in Humane Medicine in McLean’s ensemble effort to show us different paths to the future." Dr. Vincent Hanlon, Physician and Family Support Program, Alberta Medical Association - 


 "Using the arts to teach and stimulate empathy contributors argue for training in empathy in medical schools as an essential tool in patient care.   Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a reference book for medical educators.  The book contains many interesting ideas for those who wish to both enliven and deepen their teaching of undergraduates... makes a strong case for broadening the base from which we as medical professionals live and work."

South African Medical Journal, SAMJ, Vol. 104, Nov. 2014, reviewer Dawn Garisch



"Creative Arts In Humane Medicine" takes us on a fascinating journey to meet educators, clinicians, support workers and artists all of whom have created an innovation around applying arts-based methods to enhance patient care, reflexivity in learners and a sense of community and wellbeing in practitioners. . The book’s emphasis on multiple media (theater, music, visual and digital imagery, literature and reflective writing) is a strength as is its inclusion of international and interprofessional perspectives. Creative Arts does much to advance the scholarly credibility of the health humanities while skilfully promoting the humanistic imperative for learning, teaching and healing using both sides of the brain."

Allan D. Peterkin MD Head, Health, Arts and Humanities Program and Humanities Lead, Undergraduate Medical Education University of Toronto 
________


"Cheryl McLean's Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a fascinating 
collection of essays that evocatively illustrates the importance of literature, 
music, photography, and art in facilitating self-care and awareness among
health care providers, training empathetic physicians, and improving
patient care."

Martin Donohoe, MD, FACP

-- Author of Public Health and Social
Justice
(2013)
  ​


"Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a graceful and important book that
offers a groundbreaking, inspiriting engagement with issues such as empathy,
empowerment, ethics and evidence, explored by a rich cast of inter-professional
authors such as artists, educators, clinicians, and researchers.  Through a
collage of creative arts methods and messages, these authors illuminate the
essence of the “human story of health care” as loving, healing and humanly
embodied—an essential message in an era of highly institutionalized technical
health care. A must read for academics, researchers, clinicians, and students
interested in creative healing arts, narrative health and humane medicine, or
for anyone interested in the application of reflection and curiosity, creative 
expression and arts-based methods to the field of healthcare."

Sue MacRae
-- Registered
Nurse, Clinical Ethicist,
Psychotherapist
           

_______

"Some have said that medicine, rather than being a science,
is really an interactive process. It is informed by science but also
dependent on psychology, sociology, philosophy, law and human creativity.
McLean’s book should be a must read for those responsible for medical
education...so that in the end the human connection between healers and
those they heal is enhanced."

Michael Gordon, MD, MSc, FRCPC -- Medical Program Director, Palliative Care, Baycrest
Geriatric  Health Care System; Professor of Medicine, University of Toronto
    

_____


"This publication calls attention to a wide range of situations in which art forms might be educational or therapeutically helpful..."Creative Arts in Humane Medicine" may serve an important role in stimulating further interest and research in this field."

Literature, Arts and Medicine, NYU School of Medicine

____

"All submissions incorporated extensive literature reviews, which will well serve the reader who wishes to delve more thoroughly into specific content. Several entries discussed the evolution of the medical humanities in medical education........McLean's new book is for all those interested in healthcare and the arts... The integration of the arts into health care professional education remains a marginalized field, but best practices in this field abound."

 Mary Ann McDermott RN, EdD, FAAN
Loyola University Chicago,



Presentations

"In Navigating Tides of Challenge and Change", a keynote address to the one-day conference titled Creative Professionalism, hosted by the School of Education at Acadia University, Cheryl McLean once again connects people and the work they do. Cheryl understands the need for community and communal responses to communal issues. She does not shy away from challenging her audience, but she also offers encouragement and support to those who take up those challenges."  Dr. John J. Guiney Yallop, Acadia University,  School of Education

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“Cheryl is an energetic and visionary leader in promoting the arts and creativity in transdisciplinary contexts that include education and health care. Cheryl has a remarkable record of creating networks of colleagues nationally and internationally.” 

Carl Leggo, Professor, Language and Literacy, University of British Columbia


"Cheryl was the keynote speaker for the Arts-based Research Symposium I was involved in organizing at Acadia University in October 2012. Cheryl's keynote address touched a diverse audience of students, faculty, staff, administrators and community members. I still hear comments about how accessible and inspiring her talk was. Cheryl even stayed throughout the symposium and offered us her thoughts at the closing. We were so privileged to have her with us. She is as generous as she is enthusiatic. "

John J. Guiney Yallop, Associate Professor, School of Education, Faculty of Professional Studies, Acadia University

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Ms McLean's (keynote) presentation ("Living Stories of Hope and Change")  addressed two questions: How Can I use the creative arts to support my personal wellness?, How do the creative arts in medicine help practitioners enhance clinical and relational skills? She answered those questions in a multifaceted presentation that began with a dramatic reminiscence honoring the memory of her mother, a psychiatric nurse.
Her references to the burgeoning literature about the dynamic and sometimes controversial, presence of the humanities in health care complemented the performance aspects of her presentation. For Ms. McLean, the arts and the humanities provide practitioners with a rich means to discover and re-discover the nature of healing—of our patients and ourselves."
 Alberta Medical Association website


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Books by Cheryl L. McLean,

Brush Education (distributed by University of Toronto Press)



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Distributed by University of Toronto Press
  • Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a resource book for medical educators and learners about the arts and research  in action in medical  education, programming and in practice. This is a topical collection which features international educators and  physicians as well as  leaders and innovators  in education and health.  The book provides illustrative examples and evidence showing how the creative arts can uniquely offer new ways to learn and practice while facilitating effective communication and providing creative opportunities to foster empathy and  engage in mutually respectful practice and relationship centred care.  Practitioner self care is also an important theme in this book as articles show how the arts in action in  medicine can help foster new forms of practitioner  self expression and healing while  re-illuminating  how clinicians see themselves and their clients/patients
  • Creative Arts in Humane Medicine is a unique and helpful resource book that takes a broad and international look at a growing field. Includes research as well as topical examples of the arts in action in medicine, education and health
  • A collection that features contributions from physicians, medical educators, allied health professionals as well as medical students active in the creative arts and working toward a more humane approach to medicine
  • Also features photography and artworks, stories, narratives  and poetry expressed through the arts for rich and scholarly personal perspectives about arts in action in  medicine and education



PUBLISHED  BOOKS 2010, 2011,Detselig Temeron Press/Brush Education

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Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice Inquiries for Hope and Change (editor Cheryl McLean, Publisher of The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, associate editor, Robert Kelly, Associate Professor, Fine Art, University of Calgary) is a project of IJCAIP, The International Journal of The Creative Arts in Interdisciplinary Practice, and is published by Detselig Temeron Books, Calgary. First hand topical accounts are featured from leading academics, health researchers, nurse educators, physicians, educators, environmentalists, artists and others who actively use the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice in cutting edged research and in methodologies for health, hope and change. Readers will discover how the creative arts in interdisciplinary practice can re-illuminate the human story, stage human vulnerability, foster citizenship and give voice to narratives of human experience. This is a contemporary book that asks questions seeking vital solutions to the most critical social crises of our times while sharing courageous accounts of life and personal transformation..stories of hope and change."
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Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change
The book Creative Arts in Research for Community and Cultural Change, Editor Cheryl L. McLean, Associate Editor Robert Kelly published by Detselig Temeron Press,  features researchers, artists, educators, participants and community members describing  projects that address the most fundamental of human needs, the need for healthy and safe communities with water to drink and air to breathe, the need for human expression and connection, the desire to be accepted and acknowledged as a human being of value and to voice their personal stories for witness whether it is from a stage, a study circle, a kitchen table or to be experienced at exhibits in public spaces in the photographs of a community of women, street workers, sharing images depicting stories of survival on the streets of the inner city.”
“We expect many will be transformed by what they witness through these accounts and a few might be inspired to take action themselves launching new initiatives and igniting change for the betterment of places, for the life of our cities and all who call them home and because they believe in the arts and all that communities, in action, together, can accomplish. At a time of desperate need and ongoing unrest internationally, this important contemporary research collection is a valuable source of information as well as a call for creative new approaches in contemporary research leading to meaningful action. Creative Arts for Community and Cultural Change provides first hand insights into evolving processes unique to the creative arts in research and interdisciplinary practice as well as a wealth of information and examples for in class review and highly relevant in-depth dialogue and debate.”
 
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C. L. McLean from the research based solo performance "Remember Me for Birds" an ethnodrama about aging, mental health and autonomy.

 

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