Take a Break From Burnout

Family Physician
Contra Costa Health Services

Dr. Alan Siegel finished his medical training at University of Virginia in 1997 and has worked since 1999 as a Family Physician within the Bay Area’s Contra Costa Health Services (CCHS). Within CCHS, he founded and directs Art of Health and Healing (AHH) since late 2010. In this role, he collaborated with California Institute for Integrative Studies to start a thriving Expressive Arts Therapy training program.

Alan became interested in arts in health through his previous work on the board of ArtsChange, an arts empowerment organization, and through his passion as a musician. He has worked on improving healing environments, providing Therapeutic Musicians in the ICU and wards, developing a Therapy Pets program and hospital farmers’ market, helping to develop the community-based Stress Relief Through the Arts program, and starting wellness classes for staff and patients.

He has also led and grown a unique staff program, Health Care Workers As Creators, over the last decade. Alan provides leadership for the renowned Contra Costa Family Medicine Residency Program, specializing in ambulatory education and faculty development, and is presently a UCSF Champion of Change Fellow. He leads an R&B/Motown/Blues band, The Rhythm Method.

I have been director of UCSF Art for Recovery since its inception in 1988.  I retired in January 2020 and was asked to return as of June, 2020, to the UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center to write a book on art work by cancer patients as well as other special projects. 

As Director of Art for Recovery’s award-winning program, I have created and facilitated numerous art and healing programs including: the Breast Cancer Quilts Project, Firefly Project, Employee Well-Being Project, Healing Garden Music Series, the Open Art Studio for anyone dealing with cancer at Mission Bay and Mount Zion, writing workshops, art workshops on the Bone Marrow Transplant Unit, and Hematology/Oncology Dept., and the Precision Cancer Medicine Building Canvas Project. 

In addition, in collaboration with the UCSF Department of Medical Humanities, I have published:  The Firefly Project: Conversations about what it means to be alive, Bedside Manners: What to say and what not to say when someone is ill, The Portable Artist Workbook and The Portable Artist Coloring Book, the Art for Recovery Book of Prompts, and Prompts for Reflection, andThe Postcard Quote Project. In the spring of 2018, the Patient as Teacher Anthologywas published. 

As an artist, I am a painter, illustrator, and work in mixed media.  Along with my Art for Recovery staff we have painted eight murals (six on the ceilings of the Ultrasound suites) throughout UCSF and worked with architects to create the Mount Zion Meditation Room.  

I am currently serving on the Mission Bay Core Committee for Arts and Interiors for the new cancer center, and the UCSF Patient Family Advisory Board, and currently, co-leading NOAH’s ARC, a national initiative to alleviate burnout and stress in clinicians through the expressive arts. My background is in fine arts, psychology and art history, and my career began doing research in 18^th and 19th century American Painting and Sculpture, at the National Museum of American Art, Smithsonian Institution.

Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist; Developer and Manager
Arts for Healing program, Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital

Janice Baker, MA, CTRS, CAGS is a Certified Therapeutic Recreation Specialist, mixed media and jewelry artist. Ms. Baker is an expressive arts specialist with a Certificate of Advanced Graduate Study (CAGS) in the Applications of the Expressive and Creative Arts from Salve Regina University, RI; a MA in Rehabilitation of the Blind from Western Michigan University; BA in Therapeutic Recreation from the University of Connecticut.

Baker established, develops and manages the multi-disciplinary Arts for Healing program at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, New Haven, CT since 2003. Program includes art therapy, music therapy and artists-in-residence who provide therapeutic interventions, events and collaborative community projects that engage approximately 12,000 patients, family and staff per year. Baker raised over $1 million in philanthropic funds to expand the program. Awards include National Endowment for the Arts, CT Office of the Arts and LEGO Community Fund U.S. Baker’s work centers on embodied sensory awareness and multi-modal expression using expressive art and writing processes to support the resiliency of pediatric patients with chronic and acute illness and behavioral health needs, their families and caregivers.

In addition, Janice Baker Expressive Arts, llc (2015) offers nature-inspired self- expression, meditation and poetic storytelling that fosters creative resilience as a wellness and self-care practice. Baker’s community workshops create connection for participants through shared art experiences that honor, support and transform their personal journeys.