CLEVELAND — The COVID-19 pandemic in many ways caused grief and trauma to all who were directly or indirectly affected by it. Healthcare workers have been no exception.
The healthcare workers who have been on the front lines during the last two years all have unique stories about their own grief and trauma after seeing just how devastating COVID can be to not only the individuals they treat, but the families of those individuals as well.
Intensive Care Unit (ICU) teams across eight Cleveland Clinic campuses have come together to showcase a project that has been used as a way to provide a therapeutic activity to the healthcare workers while allowing them to express those feelings through art.
Since March of 2022, the ICU workers of the Clinic have been working on the pieces of art that are now being showcased on the Clinic campuses.
Dr. Jennifer Ramsey, Wellness Officer Repository Institute says, "The ICU is a fast-paced world but just a moment to pause and reflect on the grief and the trauma and the perseverance and strength that we've shown up with as human beings and health care workers."
Tammy Shella is the manager of the art therapy program at the Cleveland Clinic. She told 3News of the importance of this program and what it means to have this outlet available to those healthcare workers who have unexpressed trauma waiting to be shared.
"The good things that came from that experience for them like teamwork and resilience and steadfastness. So I think the art really represents that in a great way in a way that just talking to them you don't get. They saw a lot of death, they saw colleagues burning out so the fact that they're still here and they can represent themselves is really powerful."
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