Open-Access, No-cost Anti-Colonial Learning Resource Offers Art to Transform Healthcare Systems Across Canada
Through a new website, H.E.A.L. Healthcare brings together artists, writers, activists, and people with lived experience to create arts-based and anti-oppressive teaching tools.
Lheidli T’enneh Territory, Prince George, B.C. – An innovative new arts-based to support practitioners and others working in health care to address health disparities and biases has launched. The project is a result of a long-standing collaboration between the (HARC) and the , both housed at ÂÜÀòÉäÇø.
The Hearts-based Education and Anti-colonial Learning in Healthcare (H.E.A.L. Healthcare) Project unlocks the potential of arts and humanities to disrupt longstanding and well-established health disparities. Starting from the premise that healthcare is both an art and a science, H.E.A.L. Healthcare uses poetry, storytelling, visual arts, and other creative tools to confront oppressive healthcare biases, to understand patient experiences, and to humanize healthcare systems and cultures.
"As an anti-colonial medical educator, I believe there needs to be more tools to combat oppressive practices,"
said Dr. Sarah de Leeuw, Research Director, HARC; Director, NCCIH; Canada Research Chair, Humanities and Health Inequities; and Professor with the UBC Northern Medical Program at ÂÜÀòÉäÇø. "Every tool on this website asks for self-reflection and internal focus. Health educators and clinicians can benefit from the innovative, art-based tools offered through this website."
H.E.A.L. Healthcare brings together artists, writers, activists, and people with lived experience to create arts-based and anti-oppressive learning materials. H.E.A.L. Healthcare teaching tools are designed to inspire anyone in any healthcare field: healthcare providers and professionals (nurses, dentists, doctors), healthcare staff and administrators, and healthcare students, educators, and institutions.
The free and open-access lessons are available at
