Click to access the article (open access)
One sign of a movement’s progress is when the establishment takes notice. This one’s a biggie: Regina Holliday’s Walking Gallery of Healthcare (Facebook) is in the January 16 edition of the AMA Journal of Ethics. A five page article! Click the image to view it.
We’ve said since the founding of our society that participatory medicine is a movement – a social movement. One of the most conspicuous signs of this movement has been the artist / activist @ReginaHolliday and her Walking Gallery of Healthcare – over 400 jackets she and other artists have painted for people, putting their medical story on their jacket, gratis, because “everyone’s got a medical story but nobody can see them.” This ongoing project for “art in the environment” fixes that. (See her post this week that lists all the artists and jackets.)
Regina has done 348 jackets; 42 other artists have done 53 more, all free* if you’ll wear them to conferences – because believe me, they start conversations about healthcare. And that’s how movements grow.
Regina is a force of nature – Forbes called her Healthcare’s Rosa Parks and the BMJ published a photo of her mural “73 cents” on its table of contents page.
*Will you support the costs of this work? The painters’ labor is free but the paint and shipping aren’t. There’s a GoFundMe page to raise money for the next 400 jackets. Many of us have contributed – will you? It’s a movement, and it’s getting traction. Put your shoulder to it!
Going to Regina Holliday’s “Patient Unconference” and meeting the people she gathered made me decide that I had to take an even more active role in this movement. Until that time, I considered the errors in diagnosis and treatment that I had endangered my life a limited experience. To realize the extent of the problem, the creative solutions and the committment to reform this system gave new impetus to my own advocacy.
I will be supporting the GoFundMe page for Regina and all patients in need of our voices.