UCLA Journal of Radiation Oncology SUMMER 2024 - Flipbook - Page 58
UCLA RADIATION ONCOLOGY JOURNAL
N: They're inextricable from medical training
and cancer care. Whether we knew it or not,
book Your Brain on Art. Do you feel that your
early appreciation of and immersion in nature
throughout our training we've been learning
fostered a heightened outward focus and
to look at a slide, a scan, a sick patient, and
ability to more readily connect with others?
see clinically relevant details more vividly and
N: I hope so! There's a whole science on the
systematically than we could have imagined
neurobiology of awe—the overview effect is a
just a few years ago. I can't wait to develop that
space-themed example that's gained a lot of
eye for contouring targets in rad onc, where
interest for the public and for mission planners.
attention to detail could impact someone's life
Deep down I think I would have been drawn to
five years down the road. You'll find poetry
medicine even in another world where I didn't
everywhere too—in the rhythm of rounds, in the
grow up loving nature, but it definitely shaped
evolution of new acronyms, in the "slant rhyme"
the way I feel about us as a fundamentally
of tailoring standards of care to an individual
connected human race. Yet even though we
patient's needs. I could wax on and on about
have so much in common, from our genome to
poetry in the way we operate and communicate
our ubiety in this tiny corner of the observable
with each other and with patients, but I'll just say
Universe, everyone has a story that's all their
I'm glad for my English major because I think
own, and each person and each patient is so
discussing language arts in an academic setting
much more than the sum of their cells. To me,
helps me appreciate these patterns in patient
thinking about the scale of the Universe and the
care more intentionally. I'm not always able to
subatomic realm makes that conclusion much
in the moment, but it helps me piece together
more marvelous and vivid. ☐
meaning out of the failures, so for me it's been
a countermeasure against burnout. I'm all for
a movement to bring humanities into medical
education and practice (and space exploration)
more readily—and glad there's traction here at
UCLA.
E: Part of our conversation about
Neuroaesthetics was with Dr. Helena Hansen,
Director of the Semel Institute at UCLA and
Co-Founder of Project ReConnect. The project
and her work aim to explore how delivering
care and steeping patients in nature can foster
outward focus and connection with others.
You talked about growing up in nature and
your early appreciation for its “hugeness”—or
the Neuroaesthetic “awe” of nature that Susan
Magsamen and Ivy Ross talk about in their
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