John Graham-Pole, MD Co-Founder

JGPandRoddieDr. John Graham-Pole is a retired professor of pediatrics and affiliate professor of clinical and health psychology at the University of Florida. He has been a clinician, teacher and researcher for over 25 years in the field of childhood cancer.

In 1991 he co-founded Arts in Medicine (AIM) at the University of Florida, arguably the nation’s leading university hospital arts program. As well as over 120 scientific publications, he has published more than 60 poems and essays on the healing arts, and performs as an improvisational actor and clown. His book, “Illness and the Art of Creative Self Expression,” was published by New Harbinger Publications in Summer 2000.

He is a winner of his university’s annual Superior Accomplishment AwarMDd and is listed in The Best Doctors in America, 2nd Edition 1994-95 and 4th Edition 1998-99, The Best Doctors in America: Southeast Region 1996-97 and Who’s Who in America 1996. He was nominated in 1999 for the American Medical Colleges Humanism in Medicine Award, and presented The McGovern Lecture for Yale University’s School of Medicine Program for Humanities in Medicine 1999-2000 Lectures. He is a board member for several national organizations, including the American Holistic Medical Association, Society for Arts in Healthcare and the National Association for Poetry Therapy.

He has received grants from the National Institute of Health, the American Cancer Society and the State of Florida Arts Council, and has had continuous funding from Shands Hospital and Children’s Miracle Network for his AIM program over the past five years.

He has been an invited speaker throughout North America on all aspects of the health-illness transition, particularly on creativity and the arts, humor, poetry, death and dying, spiritual and ethical issues.

More of John’s work can be found here: https://www.johngrahampole.com/