Program in the Arts, Humanities, & Health

Statement of Vision and Mission

The Program in the Arts, Humanities, & Health recognizes that art and the humanities can foster empowerment, equity, and community, and serve to humanize medical practice and education. The arts and humanistic inquiry are powerful tools for cultivating health, and serve to both nurture and reflect the human spirit. Further, the arts and humanities are uniquely capable of connecting people–caregivers and patients, students and teachers, institutions and their surrounding communities–in the realization and experience of their shared humanity.

The Program in the Arts, Humanities, and Health (AHH) engages members of the Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions (JHMI) and East Baltimore communities in a range of activities at the nexus of artistic expression, humanist inquiry and well-being. Expanding the mission of the Office of Cultural Affairs, which has furthered medical arts and humanities at JHMI since the 1970s, AHH: (1) partners with relevant stakeholders across the university and city to offer new cultural programs (e.g., concerts, film series, discussions of poetry, literature and art, etc.); (2) serves as a clearinghouse for ongoing JHMI initiatives at the intersection of the arts, humanities and health; and (3) cultivates stronger relationships between JHMI and the East Baltimore community through the arts.

Dr. Gail Geller, Director

Gail Geller, ScD, MHS, is a Professor at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Berman Institute of Bioethics (BI).  She holds joint appointments in the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Krieger School’s Department of Sociology, and an adjunct appointment in the Center for Medical Humanities and Social Medicine.  A sociologist by background, Dr. Geller studies the ethical and social dimensions of medical care, medical education and public health.  Dr. Geller is particularly drawn to the intersection between bioethics, medicine and the arts.  In her capacity as Director of Education Initiatives at the Berman Institute, she oversees the planning and implementation of several arts-related performances and events, and interacts with the Science & Entertainment Exchange at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.  In the School of Medicine, she co-directs the “culture of medicine” core theme and the Scholarly Concentration called HEART (Humanism, Ethics, and the Art of Medicine) which includes significant attention to the role of the arts in medical education.  She also teaches in the “Medical Humanities & Social Medicine” elective. She has produced a number of documentaries for educational purposes in collaboration with an academy-award winning documentary filmmaker.  Some of these films have won Houston International Film Festival, CINE Golden Eagle, Remy and Telly awards. Several of the NIH grants on which Dr. Geller has several as Principal Investigator or Co-Investigator have involved significant community engagement. Some of these projects have focused on cultivating respectful and trusting relationships in the community.

Dr. Loren Ludwig, Program Coordinator

Loren Ludwig is the program coordinator for the program in Arts, Humanities, & Health at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Also a scholar/performer based in Baltimore, MD, Loren studied viola da gamba at Oberlin Conservatory and completed his PhD in musicology at the University of Virginia in 2011. Loren has served as musicology faculty at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins University, Grinnell College, and the New Zealand School of Music, and is excited to bring his experience as a performing musician and music researcher to his role generating and facilitating cultural programming on JHMI’s East Baltimore and Bayview campuses.