Teambuilding at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum
On a cold late afternoon in January, our team of 12 physicians and scientists gathered at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum. We represent five nationalities and many different areas of biomedical expertise. Some of us experienced together the isolation of the beginning of the COVID epidemic. I am a medical oncologist at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, a physician seeing patients with rare lung diseases including lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM) at the Brigham and Women’s. I spend most of my time on laboratory-based research, focused on rare forms of cancer including tumors of the lung and kidney.
In any given week, laboratory work can be exciting and rewarding, and yet simultaneously tedious. Each experiment and result is repeated multiple times and validated in other systems. Often things don’t work as expected, for reasons that are frustrating, time consuming, and hard to understand. Every day is intense and busy. We work in close proximity, sharing lab space and equipment and dealing with many challenges. Teamwork is key, since each member brings distinct expertise and perspective, and usually multiple people contribute to each project. Our shared commitment to making progress for patients keeps us going.
After arriving at the Gardner Museum that day, we spent time with Brooke Digiovanni Evans, Director of Visual Arts Education at Brigham & Women’s. Several scientists had never been to the museum before. To begin, we each shared what we hoped to learn from the experience. The number one response was to relax/unwind/enjoy!
Our first stop was the imposing life-sized portrait of Isabella Stewart Gardner herself. We commented on what we saw in her posture, facial expression, and clothing, and the background behind her. The comments built upon each other in interesting ways – one person pointed out the symmetry of her clothing and someone else noticed a parallel symmetry in the wallpaper behind her; one person noticed her solemn expression and another her closed posture, with folded hands. Brooke allowed some silence during this experience, which seemed to encourage everyone to speak up. In many ways this mirrors what we do in our shared laboratory meetings, in which one person will show their recent data and explain their interpretation. Almost inevitably, a second scientist sees something in the data that wasn't initially emphasized, leading to an observation by third lab member, and often leading to new interpretations of the data and new ideas and perspectives for next experimental steps.
Our next stop was a room in which each of us chose a favorite object that reflects why we chose to do biomedical research. As we each briefly explained our choice, I learned something new about each of our team members, even those I have known for more than 10 years.
Our third and last stop was the gorgeous central courtyard garden in the museum, where we formed small teams to create “paint chip poetry.” As a science and math focused person myself, I have never really enjoyed poetry, and this was a bit intimidating. Ultimately, this was the exercise that we enjoyed the most. We first spent 15 minutes on our own in the peacefulness of the garden, noticing and listening, and then joined our team to write a short poem on what we had observed. Each line of the poem was written on one of four paint chips on a card (what you would pick up at Sherwin Williams). As we read the poems to each other at the end, I think we were all a bit awed by the results.
Our team rarely has time together as a group, outside the hospital. Each of the three exercises brought us together in a very different way from how we interact in the research laboratory. For me, I felt even more connected to these amazing scientists and physicians with whom I am so fortunate to work.
Elizabeth Henske
Director, Center for LAM Research and Clinical Care and Professor of Medicine, Harvard Medical School
Paint chip poem