IT’S MORE THAN JUST A PHOTOGRAPH
Faculty and staff pictures featured at UF Health The Oaks
Whenever you have a chance to visit UF Health The Oaks, the newest expansion to our health care system, make sure you look around and check out what’s hanging on the walls.
The artwork throughout the building features photography taken by UF Health faculty and staff. Fifty-eight colleagues submitted more than 700 photos for UF Health The Oaks and about 150 pictures by 31 individuals are featured.
The UF Health Shands Arts in Medicine, or AIM, team developed this idea 10 years ago with the opening of the UF Health Shands Cancer Hospital.
“The concept began when we learned that employees would be migrating from Alachua General Hospital, which was closing, to the new cancer hospital,” said Tina Mullen, director of AIM. “This also was the first time we were going to ask employees who worked in the main hospital on Archer Road to move to the cancer hospital. This was causing a lot of stress around the idea of moving into a new building, and we wanted to take that into consideration. We wanted staff to feel a sense of ownership of this new building.”
Mullen continued, “We made a decision as part of the art program that instead of buying posters for the patient rooms, and since digital photography was becoming really accessible and printing costs were affordable, we could ask employees if they wanted to volunteer their photographs. That way, they would feel part of the new hospital.”
They enlisted the UF Health Communications team to issue a “Call to Artists” in all our internal communications tools seeking submissions from faculty and staff. The team received more than 1,000 entries.
Meanwhile, the same approach has been used to decorate other buildings with faculty and staff photography. You’ll see employee art at the UF Health Heart & Vascular and Neuromedicine hospitals, UF Health Shands emergency centers at Kanapaha and Springhill, both UF Health Springhill buildings, our UF Health practices on Main Street, the UF Health Medical Plaza and on various units throughout UF Health Shands Hospital and other locations.
“Every time a building at UF Health Shands Hospital renovates, we find a way to include employee work in the patient — if not the patient rooms, then for outpatient settings in the exam rooms and sometimes in the clinic at large,” said Robyn May, NCIDQ, LEED AP BD+C, UF Health Shands Hospital interior designer.
Each piece is tagged with the artist’s details.
Mullen said, “AIM uses the arts to bridge the human connection between the health care worker and the person they are caring for. We put the artist’s name up alongside their photograph and, in some cases, put up their job title so people make a direct relationship between who provided the work and the fact that they are in the health system.”
SUBMISSION CRITERIA
In keeping with the interior design of our buildings, the AIM team looks for photos that reflect Florida’s natural environment — our flora, fauna and springs, beaches or other landscapes.
May says they get a lot of submissions featuring gators and look for variety.
Mullen explained, “We look for nature-based photography that demonstrates a calming mood. People’s relationship with nature is pretty universal. We like to have the images about North Central Florida because so many of our patients have a relationship with the area. We sometimes broaden it because employees do lots of different activities, so we have occasionally included photographs from faraway places where employees have traveled.”
Next time UF Health announces a renovation or new construction, watch for a “call to artists” and consider submitting your work!
GRAND OPENING IN STYLE
The former Sears location at The Oaks Mall is being transformed into UF Health The Oaks, providing our nationally recognized health care services in the long-time shopping epicenter of Gainesville.
UF Health The Oaks will feature three specialty practices: ophthalmology, otolaryngology (ear, nose and throat & allergy) and audiology services, as well as a lab draw station. These services will be provided by UF faculty in the 139,000-square-foot space at 6201 W. Newberry Road. The facility will also have an outpatient surgical center to support ophthalmology and otolaryngology procedures, coming in the summer of 2020.
UF Health The Oaks will also bring changes to other UF Health facilities. The UF Health Eye Center practices, previously located at the UF Health Medical Plaza on Archer Road and at Hampton Oaks on Southwest 62nd Boulevard, will be consolidated at the new Oaks Mall location. In addition, the ENT and audiology practices at Hampton Oaks will also relocate to The Oaks.
