From molecules to distant stars: New workshop series expands our understanding of health

Can physicians encouraging greater body-mind awareness improve patient well-being? How might such awareness also support caregiver adaptability, resilience and decision-making?

On May 8, 2025, explore these and other questions at a workshop on Embodiology® led by S. Ama Wray, PhD, professor of dance in the UC Irvine Claire Trevor School of the Arts. The workshop, offered through the Medical Humanities and Arts Program in the UC Irvine School of Medicine, is supported through the Dr. Frank L. Meyskens & Linda Meyskens Medical Humanities and Arts Workshop Endowment.

“The goal of this inaugural workshop is to teach healing through dance, and I’m hopeful that the experience will highlight non-classical, non-scientific ways of looking at medicine,” says Meyskens, founding director emeritus of the UC Irvine Health Chao Family Comprehensive Cancer Center. The workshop endowment furthers Meyskens’ lifelong passion for broadening perspectives in healthcare. “Not everything is DNA or RNA.”

Blending Science & Art

Meyskens first joined UC Irvine in 1989 and has held a variety of roles in both the School of Medicine and College of Health Sciences, including vice chancellor and vice dean of research.

Through his decades of work as a cancer physician scientist, he has often found ways to blend science and art, including through poetry.

“His poetic skills foster compassionate connections that speak to the challenges of illness, reflect patient and physician needs with dignity and respect, and engage the possibilities of medicine in delivering holistic, empathetic care,” says Juliet McMullin, PhD, Johanna Shapiro Endowed Chair and director of the Medical Humanities and Arts Program. “The establishment of this annual workshop endowment is an expression of his commitment to mentorship and to amplifying the humanities and arts in medical education and beyond.”

Poetry has served as an outlet for Meyskens ever since a middle school poetry assignment led him to put into words his experience of being bullied by a fellow student. The writing continued throughout his education. “I wrote poems in times of maximal stress throughout my training, including during medical school,” he says. He has also published two books of poetry, Aching for Tomorrow and Believing in Today, with proceeds funding non-medical costs for cancer patients, such as transportation after chemotherapy.

In a field dominated by scientific precision, some have not understood Meyskens’ attempts to connect medicine to abstract concepts and creativity. “I well remember when I proposed various ideas in college or medical school, people dismissed them, saying, ‘Frank, that’s never going to happen.’ ” He touches on this in his poem, “Abscopal Outcomes,” published in Doctor Poets & Other Healers:

So don't tell me that something is nonsense. Impossible.
The truly creative moment that leads to deep understanding
is always a distant star far ahead of the wave
that generates innovation, outcomes and hopefulness,
illuminating understanding of the heart and soul of this walking,
talking primate by the warmth of the fireside.

Meyskens continues to seek inspiration in well-being from the humanities. “These workshops will aim to promote other ways of looking at health and disease, beyond molecules,” he says, “and that includes social dynamics.”

Beyond Molecules: Movement & Medicine

The seeds of motivation for this new Medical Humanities and Arts workshop series were planted back in December 2011, when Meyskens attended a “cancer survivorship” event featuring a variety of participants.

“I sat down, and all of a sudden, a group of dancers appeared on stage,” says Meyskens. One of those dancers was S. Ama Wray. “I later learned that they were UC Irvine students who had gone with her to Ghana to learn the art of African dancing.”

Fascinated by the performance, Meyskens reached out to Wray, sparking a professional relationship founded on mutual respect.

“Dr. Meyskens is a truly inspired physician and researcher who has produced an impressive body of scientific work, grounded in his care for humanity,” says Wray. “His insights into the arts come from his own expression as a poet. I know him to be especially fond of jazz music, and he understands the healing power of movement.” This partnership between doctor and dancer helped bridge the gap between their worlds of medicine and art.

“Indeed, conversations with him over many years have led me to comprehend, from the most fundamental biological and physical levels of understanding, that the study of movement is at the core of deepening our comprehension of human advancement, radiating out to the planets, the universe and beyond.”

Thus it is no coincidence Wray is kicking off the Meyskens workshop series, presenting Embodiology, a movement and music practice that — drawing upon indigenous, African ways of knowing — generates empathy, courage and joy by restoring a body-mind awareness. It fosters an ability to access creativity, confidence and a sense of calm, even while experiencing pressure and stress, within individual or group settings.

Joining Wray to facilitate the workshop is a small group of medical students from her medical improv course, along with special guest reelaviolette botts-ward, PhD, a healing artist and founder of blackwomxhealing. Live music will be integrated throughout as well.

“The meta-awareness that Embodiology practices illuminate aims to support well-being, adaptability and in-the-moment critical decision-making that caregivers make every day,” says Wray. If you are a student or faculty member of the College of Health Sciences interested in attending the two-hour workshop as a participant or observer, RSVP for the event by May 1, 2025.

“This new field of Embodiology has become a formal science, if you will,” says Meyskens, “because, as we’ve learned, movement starts in molecules and generates life.” He adds that future workshops might explore topics ranging from sports medicine to indigenous populations and the healing power of herbs.

“Dr. Meyskens has a long history of mentoring physician-scientists, physician-artists, and community artists,” says McMullin. “I am inspired by his generosity and excited to build a workshop series that reflects his creative and compassionate vision.”